Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Monday that Russia and the West are on the brink of a potential nuclear confrontation.
“Westerners are dangerously balancing on the brink of a direct military clash between nuclear powers, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” the minister said in a video message to the participants of the Moscow Nonproliferation Conference.
Lavrov was reported as stating that the support of nuclear powers France, the U.S. and U.K. for Ukraine posed a serious strategic risk for Russia.
The comments come after Russia reacted angrily to the U.S. House of Representatives passing a $61 billion foreign aid package for Kyiv at the weekend.
House lawmakers approved the aid Saturday despite long-standing objections from hardline Republicans; the bill now passes to the Democratic-majority Senate, which is expected to approve the legislation later this week before it’s passed to President Joe Biden to sign it into law.
“Of particular concern is the fact that it is the ‘troika’ of Western nuclear states that are among the key sponsors of the criminal Kyiv regime, the main initiators of various provocative steps. We see serious strategic risks in this, leading to an increase in the level of nuclear danger,” he said.
Russia repeatedly falsely describes Kyiv as a “criminal” regime in order to discredit and delegitimize the government. Ukraine’s international allies say they are helping Ukraine to fend off Russia’s unprovoked aggression and invasion that was launched over two years ago.
Lavrov said the world was experiencing a crisis in the system of arms control, disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation and that in order to prevent a further deterioration of a global crisis, joint efforts “were required to build an updated international security architecture based on the principles of multilateralism, equality and indivisibility,” RIA Novosti noted.
“Only in this way is it possible to reduce the level of interstate conflict and ensure real progress in the field of arms control,” Lavrov noted.
As relations between the West and Russia have deteriorated, the arena of arms control has become a frequent bone of contention and source of divergence, with several arms treaties between the U.S. and Russia abandoned or close to collapse.
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