Ukraine war: Russia warns West against ‘trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power’
Top diplomat Sergey Lavrov’s fiery UN speech comes just days after Putin aired a shift in the country’s nuclear doctrine
Russia’s top diplomat warned on Saturday against “trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power”, delivering a UN General Assembly speech packed with condemnations of what Russia sees as Western machinations in Ukraine and elsewhere – including inside the United Nations itself.
Three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West of using Ukraine – which Russia invaded in February 2022 – as a tool to try “to defeat” Moscow strategically, and “preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade”.
“I’m not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power, which is what Russia is,” he said.
Putin’s recent announcement – which appeared to lower significantly the threshold for the possible use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal – was seen as a message to the US and other Western countries as Ukraine seeks their go-ahead to strike Russia with longer-range weapons.
“Whether or not they will provide the permission for Ukraine for long-range weapons, then we will see what their understanding was of what they heard,” Lavrov said at a news conference after his speech on Saturday.
The Biden administration this week announced an additional US$2.7 billion in military aid for Ukraine, but it doesn’t include the type of long-range arms that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking, nor a green light to use such weapons to strike deep into Russia.
