MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. The United States is seeking to dismember Russia into several "separate principalities" and deprive it of nuclear weapons and its status as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Friday.

"Whereas the consequence of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the recognition of the possibility of peaceful co-existence of two great powers, now, over the past decades, Washington has set out to subvert Russia, bring it to its knees, or even better - to dismember it into several separate principalities,’ and, naturally, to deprive it of nuclear weapons and a legal place as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council," he said in a video address to the participants at an international conference marking the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

He pointed to the United States’ "tough pressure along all of Russia’s borders, where Ukraine is used as a testing ground of the most hostile scenario." "It is difficult to anticipate now how far Washington is ready to go in its standoff with Russia. Will the US ruling circles be able to stop at the brink, as it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis?" he added.