Western actions on Ukraine contradictory to democracy: Russian FM

Western countries' actions during the Ukraine crisis are contrary to democratic principles, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday.

"Our Western partners played an 'all-or-nothing' game in Ukraine as they trampled on their own democratic principles and supported the extremists. They wanted to 'bluff us' and make us swallow humiliation of Russians and Russian-speaking people in Ukraine," Lavrov said at an assembly of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.

The nature of the West's sanctions made clear that it wanted more than a simple change in Russia's policy, he said. "They want to press for a change of the regime."

The West's sanctions imposed against other countries used to be formulated in a way that "they should not damage the social sector and the economy but only selectively strike the elite (of the targeted country)," Lavrov said.

"Now everything is different. Western leaders publicly say that sanctions were planned to ruin the country's economy and stir up national protests," Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying.

Ukraine and the West have been accusing Moscow of backing the rebels in eastern Ukraine, an allegation Russia denies.

Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia over the Ukrainian crisis, which Moscow strongly opposes, and the Kremlin took some retaliatory sanctions on Western nations as well.

Moreover, Lavrov called on all leading countries in the world to discuss international relation approaches on the basis of the international law.

"It is necessary to have leading countries sit by the table and agree on how basic, legal interests of all major players may be reflected in new principles, like how to manage risks especially in the context of democratic international relations," he said. Endite