Moscow says new U.S. national security strategy is anti-Russian

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's federal Security Council on Wednesday criticised as "anti-Russian" the new U.S. national security strategy, which lists Moscow's aggression in its neighbouring Ukraine among most pressing threats.

The Security Council also repeated an assertion Washington might try to engineer political change in Russia using the same tactics of mass protest the Kremlin says it applied to topple a pro-Russian president in Kiev last year.

President Barack Obama released Washington's updated national security strategy on Feb.6, renewing his commitment to work to isolate Russia over its support for separatist rebels fighting Kiev troops in east Ukraine.

The Russian council said the update, unlike the previous 2010 version, "has an openly anti-Russian line and creates a negative image of our country." It said the implementation of the new U.S. strategy would pose a threat to Russia.

"In the long-term, the United States along with its allies will continue to push for political and economic isolation of Russia," it said.

Ties between Moscow and Washington are at their lowest since the Cold War over the conflict in Ukraine, where the West accuses Russia of driving a separatist rebellion to destabilise the former Soviet republic and boost its influence there.

Moscow has sided with the rebels but denies direct military involvement despite mounting evidence on the ground.

Moscow says its aim is to protect the Russian-speaking eastern regions of Ukraine from nationalists who took over in Kiev after the former president and Kremlin ally, Viktor Yanukovich, was ousted in street protests in February, 2014.

Moscow accuses the United States of masterminding what it calls a coup in Kiev, on the lines of other uprisings in ex-Soviet states dubbed "colour revolutions".

"There is high probability of applying in regard to Russia the improved technology of 'colour revolutions' that will be used ever more widely to remove political authorities disliked by the United States."

The Russian foreign ministry criticised Western nuclear arms policy.

Moscow said at the weekend Danish warships would become targets for its nuclear weapons should the country join a NATO missile defence it argues could undermine its nuclear capabilities.

"In our view, the United States and other NATO members should have long abandoned the pernicious one-sided steps in the missile defence field. They wouldn't have to worry about the consequences then," the Russian ministry said in a statement.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; editing by Ralph Boulton)