MOSCOW. Sept 20 (Interfax) - The West will have to make a strategic choice in relation to Ukraine, bearing in mind that Ukraine's possible accession to NATO would lead to a deep rift between Moscow and Kyiv and most negatively affect security of the whole of Europe, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"Ukraine's accession to NATO will lead to a grave crisis in Russian-Ukrainian relations. This crisis will have a most negative effect on the common European security. Thus, the West should make a choice, and this choice will be strategic," Lavrov said in an article published in the Ukrainian weekly 2000.

"Assigning the role of a buffer between Europe and Russia to Ukraine is to belittle Ukraine itself," Lavrov said. "It would be much more constructive to build relations with the surrounding world together," he said. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko's remarks in favor of Ukraine's integration into NATO are "part of a common trend of shameless exploitation of the Caucasus crisis for unscrupulous political ends, primarily with the aim of dragging Ukraine into NATO against the will of an overwhelming majority of its population and in violation of the basic democratic procedures," he said.

In particular, Lavrov pointed out that Ohryzko pushed ahead with the idea of "a NATO-centric system of European security," while "it is exactly NATO-centrism that is splitting the Euro-Atlantic community and has proven to be absolutely flawed and unpromising," Lavrov said.