Washington's attempts to treat Russia as a tool for serving U.S. interests are doomed to failure, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

"We are demonized in order to keep Europe disciplined and strengthen the Euro-Atlantic bond," Lavrov said in an interview with RIA Novosti news agency, according to a transcript by the foreign ministry.

"This also refers to attempts to orchestrate a change of power in our country or to change Russian policy, which are dictated by the desire to make us a tool for serving U.S. interests, because many in Washington suffer from such an illusion," he said.

Lavrov said that Russia had become accustomed to the influence of "opportunistic factors associated with U.S. domestic policy" on Washington's relations with Moscow, which create additional difficulties in building up a dialogue.

He said he expects that attempts to play the "Russian card" will be used more actively and more persistently by U.S. politicians ahead of the forthcoming U.S. presidential elections in November 2020.

Russia hopes that this will not lead to a further weakening of bilateral relations, which is already on rocky ground, Lavrov said.

For its part, Russia consistently advocates developing a normal, predictable dialogue with the United States based on the principles of mutual consideration and respect for interests, he said.

But so far, such a dialogue has not been possible because of Washington's incessant attempts to exert economic, military and political pressure on Russia, he said.

As a result, work on important areas of the bilateral and international agenda, including those related to maintaining stability and security in the world, is stalled, Lavrov said.

According to Lavrov, the current state of Russian-U.S. relations will not change until U.S. elites end attempts to reduce Russia down to a tool.

Tensions between Russia and the United States have been aggravated over the past few months because of sanctions, military tensions and the suspension of high-level dialogues.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed to his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump to resume direct talks on urgent bilateral and international issues.