The west continues to expand NATO, offering security guarantees only to its members, instead of granting OSCE the right to provide security for everyone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, according to RIA Novosti.

"Instead of making OSCE a fully operating organization, which would ensure security for everyone, our western colleagues took the course of thoughtless, limitless NATO expansion, telling us directly that legal security guarantees can only be given to those who join the North Atlantic Alliance," Lavov said in an interview with the Life News TV channel and the Izvestia newspaper.

Over the past few months, NATO has been placing additional forces across the Baltics amid the crisis in Ukraine.

On April 1, NATO ended all practical cooperation with Russia over Ukraine, maintaining only contacts at the ambassadorial and higher levels.

In late September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called NATO expansion in Eastern Europe a "mistake" and a "provocation" that undermines the whole European security system.