MOSCOW, April 13. /TASS/. Russia appreciated the decision of Latin American countries not to join the West's sanctions, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in the article entitled "Russia and Latin America: Forward looking partnership and cooperation" posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website on Thursday.

"It is no coincidence that the efforts to abandon the US dollar in foreign trade and to create an infrastructure of transport, logistics, interbank, financial and economic ties that are not controlled by the West have stepped up significantly around the world. Naturally, about three-quarters of the countries around the globe, including our Latin American friends, chose not to join the anti-Russia sanctions. We appreciated them for that," the article said.

According to the top diplomat, "everything that is happening in and around Ukraine is part of the unfolding fight for the future international order."

"What’s at stake today is whether the world order will be truly fair, democratic and polycentric, as the UN Charter says, which proclaims the sovereign equality of all countries, or whether the United States and the coalition that it is leading will implement their agenda at the expense of other countries including pumping resources over to suit their needs," Lavrov went on to say in the article.

"This is precisely the goal of the rules-based order concept. The Western capitals want to replace international law, primarily the UN Charter’s goals and principles, with these rules that were made up by no one knows who," he stressed.

"This simple truth has been realized by many countries that are implementing nationally oriented agendas and are guided, above all, by their core interests," the top diplomat said.

Lavrov's article was translated into Portuguese for the Brazilian daily Folha de S.Paulo and into Spanish for the Mexican Buzos magazine.