Western Support for Ukraine Could Trigger Nuclear War

MOSCOW – Minister of Foreign Affairs Russia Sergei Lavrov said Monday that the United States, Britain and France’s support for Ukraine poses serious strategic risks that raise the risk of direct confrontation between the world’s largest nuclear powers.

Lavrov said the United States and NATO were obsessed with the idea of ​​inflicting “strategic defeat” on Russia and there was a risk in such a confrontation that it could lead to an increase in the level of nuclear danger.

“Western countries are on the verge of a direct military clash between nuclear states, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” Lavrov said, as reported by Reuters.

The United States and its allies say they are helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression and that it is Russia that is exacerbating East-West tensions, including by repeatedly warning about the dangers of nuclear conflict.

Lavrov said: “Of particular concern is the fact that the ‘troika’ of Western nuclear states is one of the main sponsors of the criminal Kyiv regime, the main initiator of various provocative steps. We see a serious strategic risk in this, leading to an increase in the level of nuclear danger.”

The three Western countries that have nuclear weapons are the United States, Britain and France.

Previously, President Vladimir Putin had told Western countries that Russia was technically ready for nuclear war and that if the US sent troops to Ukraine, this would be considered a significant escalation of the conflict.

“From a military-technical point of view, we are of course ready,” Putin, 71, told Rossiya-1 television and the RIA news agency when asked whether Russia was truly ready for nuclear war.

Putin said the US understands that if it deploys American troops on Russian territory – or into Ukraine – Russia will view those actions as intervention. Moscow claims to have annexed four regions of Ukraine and says they are now fully part of Russia.