MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/. Russia is concerned over the fact that the UNESCO secretariat is violating the principle of impartiality and toeing the line of the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

"Of serious concern is the position of the UNESCO secretariat, which is obediently following the West’s policy in violation of the principle of impartiality and contrary to the organization’s charter," he said at a meeting of the Russian commission of UNESCO affairs.

During the year, "unfriendly countries have been pushing a confrontational agenda which runs counter to the principles this organization is built on," Lavrov said. "UNESCO’s program activities and related convention mechanisms have been politicized and artificially oriented toward serving the interests of the Kiev regime."

According to the Russian top diplomat, Russophobia reached its peak when the UNESCO Executive Board turned down the initiative to declare June 6, the birthday of the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, as World Russian Language Day. "This step has dashed all the mantras that the West is in no way seeking to cancel everything Russian in the context of the Ukrainian crisis. On the contrary, it demonstrated the opposite," he added.