Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke at the annual Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy in Moscow on Saturday.

Western politicians need to understand that their efforts to isolate Russia are doomed, Lavrov told the assembly, according to RIA news agency.

The West is practicing "real robbery" with anti-Russia measures, he said, TASS news agency reported.

Russia doesn't remember such a "synchronous" expulsion of diplomats even in the "darkest years of the Cold War," he added.