Russian FM, at UN, slams West for 'grotesque' Russophobia

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov bitterly criticized Western nations Saturday over the Ukraine war, telling the United Nations that the United States and its allies sought to "destroy" his country.

"The official Russophobia in the West is unprecedented. Now the scope is grotesque," Lavrov said in a fiery UN General Assembly speech.

"They are not shying away from declaring the intent to inflict not only military defeat on our country but also to destroy and fracture Russia."

After days of Western leaders denouncing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Lavrov used Russia's turn at the General Assembly rostrum to hit back at pressure on Moscow led by Washington.

The United States, he said, was expanding the Monroe Doctrine -- its 19th-century declaration of Latin America as its exclusive sphere of influence -- and "trying to turn the entire world into its own backyard."

"Declaring themselves victorious in the Cold War, Washington erected themselves almost into an envoy of God on Earth, without any obligations but the sacred right to act with impunity wherever and wherever they want," he said.

He also defended referendums Friday in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, describing them as people claiming land "where their ancestors have been living for hundreds of years."

"The West is now throwing a fit" on the referendums, Lavrov said.

US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have vowed never to accept results from the "sham" referendums, seeing them as part of an effort to change borders by force.