MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres the situation around Ukraine is largely a result of NATO’s unbridled expansion.

"As we can see - and I explained this today to our colleague and friend Antonio Guterres - that to a large extent this situation kept growing and in the decisive context this happened as a result of the policy towards NATO’s unbridled expansion and assertion of a monopolar world, which our American colleagues and their allies preferred to conduct," Lavrov told a news conference following talks with the UN Secretary-General.

"As far as our geopolitical space is concerned, all that was done with the aim of Russia’s containment. It is precisely for this purpose that Ukraine has for many years been used as a springboard for annoying and containing our country," Lavrov said.

In particular, he recalled that the Ukrainian leadership was encouraged in its efforts to introduce legislation banning the Russian language, Russian mass media, Russian culture and everything Russian in general. Alongside this the steps to advance Nazi theories and practices were legalized," he said.

In the focus of the negotiations was the situation on the European continent, including events around Ukraine and the Lugansk and Donetsk republics.

"The current situation there took shape not today or yesterday. We are very grateful to the UN Secretary-General and his team for their readiness to consider the situation in Ukraine and around it not separately from other processes on the world scene, but in the context of these processes and trends that are accumulating and which in many cases are far away from the UN ideals and the principles enshrined in the UN Charter," he added.