State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin has penned an article accusing the United States of plotting "provocations" against Russia and trying to bankrupt the country.
Naryshkin, writing in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper on Monday, attacked the U.S. over a proposed international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane over eastern Ukraine in July 2014. The article is the latest instance of anti-American rhetoric in Russia, whose relations with the U.S. have grown increasingly tense since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict last year.
A draft resolution on establishing the tribunal was brought to the United Nations Security Council by five countries investigating the crash — Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Malaysia and Ukraine, but Naryshkin argued that the U.S. was behind the move.
Russia has vetoed the resolution on establishing the tribunal, but the "main instigator, the United States — there is no doubt about it — will not let it rest," Naryshkin wrote.
After Russia's veto, the five countries vowed to seek alternative paths for establishing an independent international tribunal.
"The Russian veto has in fact saved the reputation of the Security Council, since the decision of establishing such a tribunal would have been obviously misguided and illegitimate," Naryshkin wrote.
Naryshkin also took aim at the sanctions brought by Washington and its allies against Moscow in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea and its support for pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, arguing that the U.S. was trying to ruin Russia.
"You might ask what is the U.S.' final goal. The answer remains the same: their external debt is huge, and bankrupting other states is their habitual method," he wrote.
"I think the U.S. will continue turning people into zombies with their false information, presenting whatever they want as reality, and creating new pretexts for unleashing anti-Russian sentiment in Europe," Naryshkin said.
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