S. LAVROV CLOSES HIS LATIN AMERICA TOUR
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Cuba on Wednesday evening from Nicaragua, where he had met with President Daniel Ortega, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said. He will meet President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Thursday, re-elected without surprise on Wednesday.
“The Westerners, under the aegis of countries like the United States (…) are trying to proliferate their hegemony through conflicts like in Ukraine,” said the head of Russian diplomacy in a televised statement before his departure from Nicaragua. During an exchange, Daniel Ortega and Sergei Lavrov denounced the sanctions imposed the same day by Washington on three Nicaraguan judges who stripped of their nationality 316 opponents described as “terrorists” by President Ortega.
“Hundreds of fellow senior state officials are already being sanctioned, but that doesn’t scare us at all, it doesn’t worry us at all,” the Nicaraguan president said. The day before, in Caracas, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs had called for a “union” to counter “the blackmail” of Western sanctions.