Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said on Friday in an interview with Belarusian media that “The West is scared of an honest competition, this is widely known. This is why they ‘cancel’ the culture of any country speaking from its own nationally oriented positions, prohibit TV channels from broadcasting, ban unwanted politicians on social networks and remove from the public space everything that disagrees with the neo-liberal concept of the world order.” His insight is sound since it’s indeed the case that the West is scared of countries that defend their sovereignty.

The New Cold War that’s being waged over the direction of the global systemic transition to multipolarity has catalyzed what can be described as “The Great Bifurcation” that’s unfolding over three levels: the systemic one between the Golden Billion vs. the Global South; the ideological one between the first-mentioned’s unipolar liberal-globalists (ULGs) and the second’s multipolar conservative-sovereigntists (MCS); and the tactical level between the establishment and populists. The Golden Billion’s ULGs fear the Global South’s MCS because the latter are genuinely popular.

For that reason, they’re resorting to information warfare to discredit their opponents’ governments and thus manipulate their people into thinking that they’re out of touch with the population. This modus operandi is being done in parallel with the artificially manufactured food crisis in order to catalyze regime change processes across the Global South, all because the ULGs truly fear the popular MCS governments in that part of the world. Russia’s the poster child of this emerging Hybrid War scheme but it certainly won’t be the last victim, which is why its partners must brace themselves for what’s to come.

Apart from the economic restrictions that have been unilaterally imposed on Russia following its ongoing special military operation in Ukraine and the unprecedentedly intense information warfare that followed, the Eurasian Great Power is also being “canceled” by the Golden Billion exactly as Lavrov said. This doesn’t harm Russia in any way whatsoever but is being done for purely domestic political reasons related to the Western elite’s fear of that country’s sovereign example inspiring a populist uprising against them.

After all, President Putin predicted in his speech at this month’s Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) that the West will see an upsurge of populism that’ll result in so-called “elite change”. The more that they “cancel” Russia, the more intrigued their people become about it as proven by Microsoft’s latest report confirming that its international media platforms reach more Americans nowadays than before the special operation and subsequent censorship began. This means that Western elites have more of a reason than ever to fear Russia’s sovereign example to their people.