Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych Tuesday said he will ask the US Congress and the Supreme Court to give a legal assessment of the US government's actions concerning his country.
"The United States plans to allocate $1 billion to that bandit regime, which contradicts US laws," Xinhua quoted Yanukovych as telling the media in Russia's southwestern port city of Rostov-on-Don.
Branding the current situation in Ukraine as "neo-fascist lawlessness and eve of civil war", he insisted that the so-called presidential election due in May are illegitimate.
Yanukovych said he remained the only legitimate president of Ukraine and commander-in-chief, but was forced to leave the country as "they tried to use terrorist actions against me".
"The United States says I've lost legitimacy because I fled the country. But everybody knows I was in Ukraine, in the cities of Donetsk and Kharkov," Yanukovych said, adding that once circumstances permitted, he would return to Kiev. "It won't take long," he said.
He said he believed that the economic situation in Ukraine would deteriorate soon, but "I have nothing to do with that".
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Yanukovych, whose last public appearance was also in the Russian port city of Rostov-on-Don at a press conference Feb 28, did not answer any questions from reporters at the scene after the 10-minute statement.
His address did not cover the Crimea referendum.