Sergey Lavrov said power was slipping through the hands of the old order, dominated by Washington, which has long rejected the principle of equality.

Americans and Europeans “make all sorts of promises…and then just don’t fulfil them”, he told delegates.

Quoting President Vladimir Putin, he said the West was “truly an empire of lies” which even during the battle against Nazism in World War Two, had plotted an offensive against their Soviet allies.

Soviet and then Russian leaders “were given concrete political assurances regarding the non-expansion of the NATO military alliance to the east”, which turned out to be pure deception.

Washington and Brussels have ceaselessly sought to expand their interests and alliances to subordinate the Global South and East, rejecting Russia’s desire for mutual security guarantees, he stated.

West’s ‘hybrid war against our country’

Turning to Ukraine, he said the West had “continued its ongoing militarisation of the Russophobic Kyiv regime”, brought to power via a “bloody coup” in 2014 and took that opportunity to “wage a hybrid war against our country.”

The aim since then, has been the strategic defeat of Russia he argued, with the US-led offensive now stretching into outer space and disinformation online.

Mr. Lavrov said it was “obvious” that its creation of subordinate alliances was “targeted against Russia and China” in a bid to sabotage more “inclusive” regional forums.

He said even in terms of culture, the anti-colonial “global majority” has had enough of the Western “yoke” and attacks on their religions, traditional values and sovereignty.

He saw Russia and China as defenders of a new multipolar architecture – the ascendent world order – and now the West is doing all it can to block it.

‘Coercive measures’

The Russian Foreign Minister decried US-led use of unilateral sanctions and “coercive measures”, defending Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and others, while Washington continues its effort to “Ukrainize” the international agenda.

He said it was time for full reform of “global governance architecture” including UN-led international financial mechanisms and the United Nations’ key bodies – together with what he said was a Secretariat biased in favour of capitals in NATO and the European Union.

Mr. Lavrov spoke up for Security Council expansion to include Asia, Africa and Latin America.

He said reform needed to be based on a new, balanced consensus, giving the example of the BRICS bloc of economic powers – set to expand beyond Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

Avoid ‘large scale war’

Mr. Lavrov closed his case with an appeal for compromise, saying “humanity is at a crossroads…It is in our shared interest to prevent a downward spiral into large scale war.”

He invoked the Secretary-General’s call for world leaders to meet and negotiate in the spirit of compromise at this year’s UN General Assembly, “when designing our common future for our common good.”

“This is an excellent response to those who divide our world up into democracies and autocracies and dictate their neocolonial rules to others”, he concluded.

Full statement in Russian available here