Russia said the West was playing with fire by considering allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with Western missiles. Russia warned the United States on Tuesday that World War III would not be confined to Europe.
Ukraine invaded Russia’s western Kursk region on August 6, cutting off a sliver of territory in the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War II. President Vladimir Putin said Russia would respond appropriately to the attack.
Sergei Lavrov, Putin’s foreign minister for more than 20 years, said the West was trying to escalate the Ukraine war and was “inviting trouble” by considering a Ukrainian request to ease restrictions on the use of foreign-supplied weapons.
Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a wider war involving the world’s biggest nuclear powers, though he has said Russia does not seek a conflict with the US-led NATO alliance.
“We are confirming once again that playing with fire – and this is like little children playing with matches – is a very dangerous thing for adult uncles and aunts who have been handed nuclear weapons in one Western country or another,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.
“The Americans apparently view talks about a Third World War as something which, God forbid, if it happens, will only affect Europe,” Lavrov said.
Lavrov said Russia was “clarifying” its nuclear doctrine.
Russia’s 2020 nuclear doctrine sets out when its president would consider using nuclear weapons: broadly, as a response to an attack using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, or conventional weapons, or “when the very existence of the state is threatened”.
Russia’s response
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this month that the attack on Russia’s Kursk region showed that the Kremlin’s threats of retaliation were a bluff.
Zelensky said Ukraine, because of sanctions imposed by allies, cannot use the weapons it has to attack some Russian military targets. He urged allies to be more courageous in their decisions about helping Kiev in the war.
Russia has said Ukraine used Western weapons including British tanks and US rocket systems in Kursk. Kiev has confirmed it used US HIMARS missiles to destroy bridges in Kursk.
Washington says it was not informed of Ukraine’s plans before the surprise incursion into Kursk. The US has also said it took no part in the operation.
Putin’s foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said on Tuesday that Moscow does not believe Western claims that it had nothing to do with the Kursk attack. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the involvement of the United States was “an obvious fact.”
The New York Times reported that the United States and Britain had provided Ukraine with satellite images and other information about the Kursk region in the days following the Ukrainian offensive.
The Times said the intelligence was intended to help Ukraine better monitor Russian military forces.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
