JOHANNESBURG /South Africa/, July 25. /TASS/. The West has been destabilizing the situation in BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) for years, deliberately provoking internal and external conflicts, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said on Tuesday.

Addressing a meeting of BRICS High Representatives on National Security in South Africa, Patrushev said: "For many years, the collective West has been destabilizing the situation in BRICS countries." "It has been exploiting the most abundant resources of the African continent in the spirit of colonial practices," the senior Russian security official added. He also accused Western countries of setting their own rules in the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East, as well as in the post-Soviet space, including in Transcaucasia and Central Asia.

"In all the aforementioned regions, Westerners deliberately ignite interethnic, interfaith and interstate conflicts," Patrushev maintained. Among the tools being used by the West, he said, there are military force, political blackmailing and illegal economic sanctions as well as attempts "to force a change in the customs and traditions in our countries, deny universal human values and interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.

According to Patrushev, such activity mostly harms developing economies.

Meanwhile, the world is currently going through radical changes, he said. "Without exaggeration, the future world order is currently being decided," he surmised. The rise of sovereign nations "who are ready to resolutely defend their national interests" would usher in multipolarity, the Russian Security Council secretary said with confidence. Commenting on new centers of power in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, he said that "they are playing an increasingly prominent role in working out decisions on issues on the global agenda and are showing willingness and ability to defend their own path of development," he concluded.