Russia warns of direct conflict with West over Ukraine

[New Sancai Compilation and First Release] Russia said on April 22 that military support for Ukraine by the United States, Britain and France has brought the world to the brink of direct conflict between the world's largest nuclear powers, which could ultimately lead to disaster.

Russian and U.S. diplomats say President Vladimir Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious rupture in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Just two days after U.S. lawmakers approved billions of dollars in additional military aid to Ukraine, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the United States and NATO were bent on inflicting a "strategic defeat" on Russia.

Lavrov said Western support for Ukraine has brought the United States and its allies to the brink of direct military conflict with Russia.

Lavrov said at the Moscow non-proliferation conference: "The West is teetering dangerously on the brink of direct military conflict between nuclear powers, which will have catastrophic consequences." "What is particularly worrying is that the "Western nuclear powers" "The Troika is the main supporter of the criminal regime in Kiev and the main initiator of various provocative steps. We see that this poses serious strategic risks, leading to nuclear dangers."

Since the war began, Russia has repeatedly warned of rising nuclear risks, and the United States says those warnings must be taken seriously, but U.S. officials say they have not seen any changes in Russia's nuclear posture.

Putin sees the war as part of a centuries-old war with a decadent West that he says has humiliated Russia by expanding NATO and encroaching on what Moscow considers Russia's historical sphere of influence after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Russia.

Ukraine and its Western backers say the war is an imperial plunder by a corrupt dictatorship that will lead Russia to a strategic dead end. Western leaders have vowed to work to defeat Russian forces in Ukraine while ruling out the deployment of any NATO personnel in the country.

As relations sour, both Russia and the United States have lamented the unraveling of a network of arms control treaties designed to slow the Cold War arms race and reduce the risk of nuclear war.

Russia and the United States are by far the world's largest nuclear-armed states, possessing more than 10,600 of the world's 12,100 nuclear warheads. China has the third largest nuclear arsenal, followed by France and the United Kingdom.

Lavrov said that given the current crisis, there is no basis for dialogue with the United States on arms control issues. "There is no basis for dialogue with the United States on arms control and overall strategic stability in the context of a comprehensive hybrid war against us," he said.

Lavrov said that the West is building a global missile defense system that can destroy its opponents, deploying nuclear weapons in Europe, deploying short- and medium-range missiles around the world, and preparing to deploy weapons in space.

In February 2024, Putin stated that Russia opposed the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and his defense minister denied Washington’s accusation that Russia was developing nuclear capabilities in space.

The United States says it is developing its defense capabilities in line with international agreements. It says it wants only peaceful uses of outer space and that its missile defense program is defensive in nature.

Lavrov also accused the West of launching a propaganda campaign to discredit Russia.

Lavrov said the West's "goal is to divert the international community's attention from the real threats in outer space in order to allocate more financial resources to build up its national military space capabilities."

"Our top priority remains the development of an international, legally binding instrument that provides reliable guarantees against the deployment of weapons in outer space."

(Compiled by: Wang Jimin)

(Editor: Jiang Qiming)

(Source of the article: Compiled and published by New Sancai)