MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. Western countries have invented the ‘shadow fleet’ and are trying to detain vessels through the use of force in the fight for outgoing dominance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the TV BRICS international network.

"All geopolitical confrontations and attempts to impede the course of history inevitably affect bilateral affairs. There is no need to list everything – sanctions, the so-called shadow fleet invented by the West, attempts to detain vessels on the high seas through the use of force in blatant violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and tariffs imposed for purchasing oil or gas. This has become widespread practice," Russia’s top diplomat pointed out.

There is a struggle to preserve the old world order, which was based on the role of the US dollar and on the rules devised by the West and embodied in the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, Lavrov said.

"As new centers of growth began achieving much stronger economic results under these rules, with higher growth rates – as we see across BRICS countries – the West sought to prevent this shift. This is impossible to stop," the Russian foreign minister said.

The growth rates and purchasing power-adjusted GDP of BRICS countries have already exceeded those of the G7 combined, he added.

"Both these objective economic shifts and the subjective attempts by declining centers of power to obstruct them constitute the core of our work - not only at the level of global analysis and forecasting, but also in our bilateral relations with every country," Russia’s top diplomat said.