MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed on Sunday that a Ukrainian mob that attacked Moscow's embassy in Kiev wanted to take over the compound and see "blood spilt".

"Our diplomats feel that the attackers wanted to physically seize the embassy," news agencies quoted Mr Lavrov as saying. "There are also reasons to believe that they wanted to see blood spilt."

Nationalists with signs reading "Kremlin - hands off Ukraine!" climbed the perimeter fence of Russia's compound on Saturday while others smashed the building's windows with boulders and overturned diplomats' cars.

Their seemingly spontaneous protest followed the shooting down of a Ukrainian military plane in east Ukraine, killing all 49 soldiers on board and triggering a vow by newly elected President Petro Poroshenko to deliver "an adequate response" to pro-Russian rebels behind the attack.

Kiev accuses Russia of supplying the insurgents with weapons in order to destabilise Ukraine following its decision to seek a closer alliance with the West.

Mr Lavrov also pointed to off-the-record comments highly critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin made at the rally by Ukraine's acting Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya.

The diplomat was caught by local television telling protesters that "Putin is a prick" while urging them not to storm the Russian compound.

Mr Deshchytsya "allowed himself to make comments that cross all lines of decency," Mr Lavrov said.

"I do not know how we are going to work with him from now on," Mr Lavrov said.