Updated 1.30pm with Blinken's comments
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov used his opening remarks at an OSCE conference in Malta to deliver an anti-West tirade, potentially dashing any hopes of constructive dialogue as Russia keeps pounding Ukraine.
Speaking during the ministerial conference in Malta, his first visit to an EU state since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Lavrov said: "The Helsinki principles are just empty words to NATO and EU... They [the West] expect others to abide by them but only as long as it's in line with their aims. The West wants to drive neo-colonial hegemony at any cost”.
He was speaking at the Ta' Qali venue as Russia got a cold reception by a number of OSCE member states. Diplomats from six countries - Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Estonia and Czechia - left the room when Lavrov started speaking.
Maltese foreign minister and OSCE chair Ian Borg called on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine and end its escalation, saying the OSCE must work towards “just and lasting peace”.
But, accompanied by a large delegation, the Russia foreign minister did not show any sign of conceding.
Lavrov said the West’s anti-tank weapons and barbed wire in Ukraine were a "reincarnation of the Cold War, only now with a much greater risk of a transition to a hot one".
The aim in Ukraine is to “keep Russia down and inflict defeat on it on the battlefield”.
Describing the West as "over-flowing with pseudo-liberal values”, he said it never respected the principle of consensus.
He said there is no single sphere in the OSCE where it can play a useful role, claiming that mutually respectful dialogue has been killed inside the 57-nation bloc.
Lavrov also referred to the revocation of the visa for the Malta conference for his spokesperson Maria Zakharova, saying it was yet another attempt to destroy consensus.
"Military exercises are growing with native participation in the South China Sea, in the Taiwan Straits around the Korean Peninsula. They (the US) completely brought the EU to heel, but this is not the end. The Biden administration is advancing military infrastructure” in Asia, which he said was “clearly an attempt to destabilise entire continent”.
Lavrov also accused Washington of military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region that sought to "destabilise the entire Eurasian continent".
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga on Thursday told the meeting that Russia was the "biggest threat to our common security".
"Russia is not a partner; it is the biggest threat to our common security. Russia's participation in the OSCE is a threat to cooperation in Europe," he said, calling Lavrov himself a "war criminal".
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Lavrov of spreading a "tsunami of misinformation" and blamed Moscow for an escalation of the war in Ukraine.
"Our Russian colleague is very adept at drowning listeners in a tsunami of misinformation", Blinken told those present.
"But let's not fool ourselves and let's not allow him or anyone else to fool us. This is not about and has never been about Russia's security. This is about Mr. Putin's imperial project to erase Ukraine from the map."
He added: "One of our colleagues talked about escalation. He's exactly right. Let's talk about escalation."
He referenced North Korea sending troops to fight in the war with Ukraine, as well as "the ongoing assault on Ukraine's energy, including its nuclear transmission group, which poses a great threat to every single country in this room".