YAROSLAVL: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday lashed out at the United States, saying it bore responsibility for the global economic meltdown.

"Last year, we all saw how the ill-thought out -- to put it mildly -- policies of one country were the cause of the world economic crisis," Medvedev said at a conference attended by the prime ministers of France and Spain.

His comments came as US President Barack Obama was to make a key address on Wall Street where he was to call for regulatory reforms targeting runaway risk and greed, one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank.

Medvedev, Obama and other world leaders are due to attend a G20 summit later this month in the US city of Pittsburgh, where Russia, China and other developing states will push for sweeping changes to global finance rules.

"States have the right to know as much as possible about each other and have the right to critically evaluate not only each others' foreign but also domestic policies," Medvedev said in a speech at the conference.

"Maybe also even to point out the failings of such policies, if they can lead to problems of international proportions or ignore ethical norms and principles of humanism."

The Russian president did not explicitly refer to the United States by name, but he also said the "benevolent hegemony" of a single state -- a term often used by academics to describe US power -- should be attenuated by other states.