Tough talk about the potential for nuclear war came from a top Russian official on Wednesday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said ...
Tough talk about the potential for nuclear war came from a top Russian official on Wednesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that World War III would be “nuclear and destructive,” according to the Independent.
The comment comes in the context of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s threat that nations trying to “hinder” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will face “consequences you have never seen in your history.”
Putin on Sunday put Russia’s nuclear forces at an elevated state of readiness.
An aide to French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke with Putin on Monday, noted that talk of nuclear war could be a calculated step by Russia, according to WJXT.
“We can see that with President Putin’s state of mind, there is a risk of escalation,” said the aide, who spoke anonymously. “There is a risk of manipulation from President Putin to justify what is unjustifiable.”
The comments come as European nations are pouring military hardware into Ukraine in a last-ditch effort to stave off the Russian conquest of its neighbor, according to The New York Times.
“European security and defense has evolved more in the last six days than in the last two decades,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, on Tuesday.
The Times reported that a hub for funneling weapons into Ukraine has been established in Poland, Ukraine’s western neighbor.
But there is a risk, noted Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute
“The more it ramps up you wonder how Putin will respond,” he said. “What happens if he attacks on the other side of the border? We pursue terrorists across borders, why not him?”
On Tuesday, in a video address to the Conference on Disarmament, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, Lavrov claimed the world needs to be protected from the dangers posed by Ukraine, according to Reuters.
“Today the dangers that (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy’s regime pose for neighboring countries and international security in general have increased substantially after the authorities set up in Kyiv have embarked upon dangerous games related to plans to acquire their own nuclear weapons,” he said as diplomats walked out on his address.
“Ukraine still has Soviet nuclear technologies and the means of delivery of such weapons. We cannot fail to respond to this real danger,” he said.
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