UN, April 25. /TASS/. The United States and the European Union manipulate the Ukrainian issue resorting to blackmail and threats in order to divert the attention of developing countries from problems in the Middle East, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.
"The Americans and Europeans are exploiting the Ukrainian issue, trying to blackmail and threaten developing countries, diverting their attention from the problems of the Middle East and other regions of the Global South - saying that if we beat Russia everything will sort itself out," Lavrov said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the situation in the Middle East.
"Thus, the crises, which the developing countries have long been striving to settle, fall victim to the hypocrisy and colonial instincts of the West, which is obsessed with its selfish interests to dictate its demands to the whole world, ignoring other peoples’ culture and traditions and mocking international law in general," the top Russian diplomat added.