The Russian Foreign Minister accused NATO and the European Union of using Ukraine to wage war on his country, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
This was what Russia's top diplomat said in a speech on the sidelines of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly in New York last night, the world agency specified, adding that Britain had described his claims as "false distortions from the world of fiction".
Lavrov spoke at the UN meeting of foreign ministers from the G-20 countries after US President Donald Trump - in a sharp change in rhetoric - ridiculed Moscow's military actions and said that, in his opinion, Ukraine is capable of regaining captured from Russian forces territories, Reuters noted.
"Another striking example is the crisis in Ukraine, provoked by the West, through which NATO and the EU have already (...) declared a real war on my country and directly intervened in it," Lavrov said.
He did not mention Trump's comments, but he did confirm Russia's position that the West's actions provoked the war in Ukraine, which Moscow began in February 2022.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper urged Lavrov, who was about to leave, to stay in the hall when he began his speech, and condemned the "unprovoked war" of Moscow.
"None of the false distortions from the world of science fiction, from the disinformation and from the propaganda of the Russian representative about the reasons for the war can convince anyone," Cooper said.