UNITED NATIONS, September 20. /TASS/. The US and its allies have openly meddled in Ukrainian affairs since the Soviet breakup and there’s evidence they engineered the crisis in that country, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine.

"Since the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of independent states in its place, the US and its allies have blatantly and openly interfered in Ukraine's internal affairs. As US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland publicly, and even proudly, admitted at the end of 2013, Washington spent $5 billion to nurture politicians in Kiev who are amenable to the West. All the facts of how the Ukrainian crisis has been engineered have long been public, but attempts are being made to downplay them by all means, to undo the entire history leading up to 2014," the minister said.