- Summary
- Lavrov says the West is playing with fire over Ukraine
- Russia is clarifying its nuclear doctrine, Lavrov says
- Lavrov talks about the dangers of World War Three
- Spy chief: we don't believe the West over Kursk
MOSCOW,
Aug 27 (Reuters) - Russia said the West was playing with fire by
considering allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with Western
missiles and cautioned the United States on Tuesday that World War Three
would not be confined to Europe.
Ukraine attacked Russia's
western Kursk region
on Aug. 6 and has carved out a slice of territory in the biggest
foreign attack on Russia since World War Two. President Vladimir Putin
said there would be a worthy response from Russia to the attack.
Sergei
Lavrov, who has served as Putin's foreign minister for more than 20
years, said that the West was seeking to escalate the Ukraine war and
was "asking for trouble" by considering Ukrainian requests to loosen
curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons.
Since
invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a
much broader war involving the world's biggest nuclear powers, though he
has said Russia does not want a conflict with the U.S.-led NATO
alliance.
"We
are now confirming once again that playing with fire - and they are
like small children playing with matches - is a very dangerous thing for
grown-up uncles and aunts who are entrusted with nuclear weapons in one
or another Western country," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.
"Americans
unequivocally associate conversations about Third World War as
something that, God forbid, if it happens, will affect Europe
exclusively," Lavrov said.
Lavrov added that Russia was "clarifying" its nuclear doctrine.
Russia's
2020 nuclear doctrine sets out when its president would consider using a
nuclear weapon: broadly as a response to an attack using nuclear or
other weapons of mass destruction or conventional weapons "when the very
existence of the state is put under threat".
RUSSIA'S RESPONSE
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier this month that the assault on Russia's Kursk region showed that
Kremlin threats of retaliation were a bluff.
Zelenskiy
said Ukraine, because of the restrictions imposed by allies, could not
use the weapons at its disposal to hit some Russian military targets. He
urged allies to be bolder in their decisions about how to help Kyiv in
the war.
Russia
has said that Western weaponry, including British tanks and U.S. rocket
systems, have been used by Ukraine in Kursk. Kyiv has confirmed using
U.S. HIMARS missiles to take out bridges in Kursk.
Washington
says it was not informed about Ukraine's plans ahead of the surprise
incursion into Kursk. The United States has also said it did not take
any part in the operation.
Putin's
foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, said on Tuesday that
Moscow did not believe Western assertions that it had nothing to do with
the Kursk attack. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei
Ryabkov said the involvement of the United States was "an obvious fact".
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reported that the United States and Britain provided Ukraine with
satellite imagery and other information about the Kursk region in the
days after the Ukrainian attack.
The Times said that the intelligence was aimed at helping Ukraine keep better track of Russian reinforcements.
Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Alex Richardson