Russian foreign minister blasts West for 'Russophobia'

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has defended his country's war in Ukraine, repeating a series of grievances about its neighbor and the West.

Speaking to reporters in New York, Lavrov defended referendums underway in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

"When, in August of 2021, Mr. Zelenskyy (Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy) in one of the interviews vociferously proclaimed that in the east of Ukraine there are not even people but specimens for somebody or entities. And if somebody in Ukraine, any of the residents of Ukraine feel Russian, wishes to speak in the Russian language, then for the sake of the future of their children and their grandchildren, he would recommend that those people leave, go to Russia, " said Lavrov.

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"The referenda are being conducted on the basis of the decisions of the local government authorities. The conditions of those referenda have been published and following those referenda as I already said, Russia, of course, will respect the expression of the will of those people who for many long years have been suffering from the abuses of the neo-Nazi regime."

Ukraine and its Western allies say the referendums have no legal force. They alleged the votes were an illegitimate attempt by Moscow to seize Ukrainian territory stretching from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula.

Lavrov went on to accuse the west of having "racist instincts" when it came to Russia, and claimed Russians faced discrimination in Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine.

Earlier in the day, Lavrov addressed delegates at the UN General Assembly.

At the heart of his address was a claim that the United States and its allies - not Russia, as the West maintains - are aggressively undermining the international system that the U.N. represents.

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