Deputy FM Sergey Ryabkov has cautioned Washington against further attempts to tap Russia’s assets or take steps that escalate the Ukraine conflict

Moscow could sever diplomatic relations with Washington if the latter persists in its hostile policies toward Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned in an interview with the news outlet Izvestia published on Saturday. The diplomat said that any steps the US takes that could escalate the Ukraine conflict may justify a rupturing of ties.  

This past June, Ryabkov warned that Washington’s increasingly hawkish posture toward Russia was making any diplomatic contacts practically “impossible.” When asked to clarify this position, he told Izvestia that while there was no scenario that would make Russia “automatically” cut ties with the West, but that this option is “undoubtedly” on the table. 

“We never take escalatory steps of this kind without provocation, but I admit to the possibility of this action if, in an attempt to put pressure on us, the West throws away the last shreds of decency,” he stated. 

When asked what US actions could make Russia further downgrade ties, he mentioned US attempts to confiscate Russia’s frozen assets, as well as “dramatic and further escalatory actions leading to a worsening of the situation on the contact line” in Ukraine. Ryabkov noted that there are a “number of plots that the West continues to discuss” that could escalate the conflict. For instance, Kiev has for months been pushing the US and its allies to lift a ban on strikes deep inside Russia with Western-supplied long-range weapons. 

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“Some within the Western group discuss [these plans] with rapture, but some do it with a certain trepidation, understanding how all this could end for them,” Ryabkov stated, signaling that as long as these discussions continue the threat of a diplomatic rupture between Moscow and Washington will remain. 

The diplomat noted that it is currently difficult to predict how US-Russia relations will unfold in view of the election of Donald Trump. Some analysts have predicted a thaw in relations due to Trump’s repeated pledges to bring a swift end to the Ukraine conflict. Ryabkov, however, said that while “promises and signals” made by Trump “are important,” Moscow will await his “specific actions” before making assessments of his policy.  

Bilateral relations between Russia and the US have been deteriorating since 2014, when a Western-backed coup led to a conflict in the erstwhile Ukrainian region of Donbass and Crimea’s reunification with Russia. Washington and its allies responded by imposing sanctions on Moscow. 

Relations further worsened when the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, at which point the West slapped Russia with more sanctions and supplied the Kiev regime with economic and military aid.  

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Moscow has repeatedly criticized the West’s sanctions policy as illegal and has slammed weapons shipments to Ukraine, warning that all they do is prolong the conflict without changing the outcome.