Russia warns West of its ‘nuclear power’ in fiery UN speech
Russia’s top diplomat warned 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 U.S. 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 Saturday.
The Biden administration this week announced an additional $2.7 billion in military aid for Ukraine, but it doesn’t include the type of long-range arms that Zelenskyy is seeking, nor a green light to use such weapons to strike deep into Russia.
The spectre of nuclear threats and confrontation has hung over the war in Ukraine since its start. Shortly before the invasion, Putin reminded the world that his country was “one of the most powerful nuclear states,” and he put its
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