Moscow: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Saturday that Washington shouldn't expect the world to forget that it made up its justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Russian diplomat made the remark on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the now-famous UN Security Council speech by the then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell, during which he purportedly presented evidence of biological weapons in Iraq.

Powell told the council that the US had no choice but to go to war and displayed a tiny vial of white powder that was meant to represent anthrax as evidence. However, Iraq has never yielded any evidence of WMDs.

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The US ruling elite's conviction in its own impunity and unchallenged right to haughtily impart knowledge to the rest of the world is exemplified by Powell's UN stunt, according to Ryabkov. In order to maintain its own global hegemony, he continued, Washington was willing to "use force against an obviously weaker opponent."

The diplomat did assert that under the current circumstances, Washington could not get away with "international banditry" as it had in the 2000s and during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

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He pointed to the "humiliating flight" of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021 as evidence that "in the rapidly changing geopolitical landscape, the US is now objectively unable to resort to a use-of-force scenario every time it feels like it, without facing serious consequences."

The diplomat went on to say that despite this setback, the US has continued to adhere to its old ways as evidenced by its "meddling" in the Ukraine conflict.

The Americans will need to get used to the new guidelines and shed their culture of impunity, which was so conspicuously displayed during the [anthrax vial] scandal. The same is true when considering Russia, China, and other significant international players who are assisting in the creation of a more equitable multilateral world order, according to Ryabkov.

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He concluded by saying that the US shouldn't hold out any hope that "the memories of what happened 20 years ago would be buried in the shifting sands of modern history."