MOSCOW, June 30 -- Russia intends to keep coordinating with friendly governments to counter what it calls Western blackmail and coercion, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday, casting Moscow's confrontation with the United States and Europe as a defense of international law rather than a challenge to it.

In a welcoming address to the 69th annual meeting of the Russian International Law Association, Lavrov accused what he termed the "collective West" of breaching the United Nations Charter through measures that he said ranged from unilateral sanctions to the direct use of armed force. Russia, together with what he called the "global majority," would press on with efforts to overcome those patterns, he said.

The remarks, reported...