The comment came after Russia vetoed the annual renewal of a panel of experts monitoring enforcement of longstanding United Nations sanctions against North Korea...
....over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs.
Three former members of the panel told Reuters that this points to a "grim future" for the sanctions enforcement.
According to the UN, North Korea is the only country to have conducted tests in the 21st century.
Moscow's veto underscores the dividend that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has earned by moving closer to President Vladimir Putin amid the war in Ukraine.
It also illustrates just how far the conflict has undermined big-power cooperation on other major global issues.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the United States was stoking military tensions in Asia.
She added that international restrictions had not improved the security situation and that there were severe humanitarian consequences for the population of North Korea.
Russia said the experts' work was neither objective nor impartial, and that they had turned into a tool of the West.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday that it was "deeply disappointed" at Russia's veto.
"Moscow appears to be intent on facilitating the DPRK's illegal pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and its veto today was a self-interested effort to bury the panel's reporting on its own collusion with the DPRK to secure weapons that it can use to further its aggression against Ukraine."
Since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has gone out of its way to parade a renaissance of its relationship with Pyongyang, including its military ties with the reclusive state.
Washington says North Korea has supplied Russia with missiles that it is using against Ukraine.
Those assertions have been dismissed by the Kremlin and Pyongyang.
