The two men were in Malta for the annual ministerial meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Lavrov's first visit to a European Union country since Russia's 2022 invasion of its neighbour.

"Now I regret that our colleague, Mr. Lavrov, has left the room, not giving me the courtesy to listen to us as we listen to him. And of course, our Russian colleague is very adept in drowning listeners with a tsunami of misinformation," Blinken said.

"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".

Blinken and Lavrov were not due to meet face-to-face in Malta.