United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said Thursday that the global community needed "to put pressure on Russia – because every day that people die in Syria, it's on Russia's hands."

"Russia continues to cover for a leader who uses chemical weapons against his people," the former South Carolina governor told Jake Tapper on CNN, adding that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "continues to do these things because they know Russia will continue to cover for them."

At a Security Council meeting Thursday, Haley got into a sharp exchange with Russian Deputy Ambassador Petr Iliichev over the humanitarian situation in Syria.

She ripped Moscow for protecting Assad's chemical use, leading Iliichev to ask why the U.S. and its Western allies were silent on what they were doing to improve the situation.

Haley continued bashing the Kremlin in her interview with Tapper.

"What you've got is a regime who is saying, 'You either bow down to us or we're going to starve you to death,'" she said, referring to Assad. "Russia is allowing this to happen."

She declined to say whether the U.S. or the U.N. planned economic sanctions against Russia, adding only that "we are continuing to talk about the issue – and I think we'll handle it accordingly."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.