Minister: Russia must do its best to be economically independent

MOSCOW, Jan 26 (PRIME) -- Russia must do its best to make its economy independent from the West’s “whims,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a news conference Tuesday.

“You can call it import substitution, you can call it structural reforms, you can call it anything you like,” he said.

“The president has mentioned it in many statements, including yesterday in the Stavropol Region. We are talking about our economy being self-sufficient, but not isolated from the world, no. It must be open for cooperation on the basis of equal rights, not on the basis of dictate.”

“We must do everything to be independent from whims of one or another group of countries, from our Western partners in the first place. Just like it happened when they were offended after we supported Russians in Ukraine, which did not accept the coup and which were to be destroyed in Ukraine, or stripped from or diminished in their rights, as I cited (the former leader of Ukraine’s far-right Right Sector organization) Dmitry Yarosh.”

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