UNITED NATIONS, January 12. /TASS/. Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian envoy to the UN, on Thursday said the US desire to play the role of a global policeman and the West’s disregard for the interests of others are the root causes of the crisis in Ukraine.

"The key message our Western colleagues have sought to get across in their speeches lately is the thesis that the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine was a sort of a point of no return from the perspective of international law. That may create the impression that until that moment nothing illegitimate had been going on in the world," he said in a speech at a UN Security Council meeting dedicated to rule of law. "That’s definitely not the case. International law had been defied and violated long before then - and not by Russia."

"The real root causes of the Ukrainian crisis lie in the hubris of the West and its absolute unwillingness to consider the interests of others even at a time when such an important thing as the security of a country is at stake," the diplomat went on to say.

According to Nebenzya, another reason for the current state of affairs is the "unstoppable desire by Washington to play the role of a global policeman that it assigned to itself.".