Russia’s foreign minister has warned Western powers not to underestimate the “real” risk of a nuclear conflict if they continue to funnel arms into Ukraine in an undeclared proxy war.
Within hours of his remarks, explosions could be heard within Moldova’s sovereign borders. Ukrainian officials believe Russia is launching “false flag” operations in the pro-Russian rebel-controlled enclave of Transnistria to justify expanding its imperial onslaught to a second nation.
Sergei Lavrov’s warning in a state television interview late Monday night represents a dramatic rhetorical escalation by the Kremlin amid an increasingly confident international response to the Ukraine crisis.
His comments drew a sharp response from Lavrov’s Kyiv counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, who said Russia had lost its “last hope of stopping the world from supporting Ukraine… It just means that Moscow feels defeat in Ukraine.” .
Lavrov, the stone veteran of Russian diplomacy, was asked in the interview about the risks of the Ukraine crisis spiraling into a nuclear conflict, as almost happened in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
“The risks are significant now,” he said. “I don’t want to artificially increase those risks. Many would wish for that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it,” Lavrov said.
“NATO is essentially engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.”
Speaking to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the day after US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in person in Kyiv, Lavrov promised even more military aid.
After initial hesitation from the Biden administration, reluctant to send weapons to Ukraine’s battlefields just for Russia’s hands, America is now fully committed to supporting Kyiv in the hope that a Ukrainian victory will conventional Russian military could neutralize threat for a generation.
On Tuesday, Austin was scheduled to host a meeting of 40 allied defense ministers at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany to coordinate the international response to Russian aggression and ensure a steady supply of heavy weapons, air defense systems and ammunition to the Ukrainian army.
The Russian invasion began two months ago, on February 24, after President Vladimir Putin ordered a “special operation” to “denazify” Ukraine and liberate Russian-speaking towns and cities.
The original plan, as formulated by Putin and his generals, called for the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, to be in Russian hands within three or four days, with Zelensky either killed or driven out of the city.
Five weeks later, after thousands of Russians were killed and its forces devastated by the tactically superior Ukrainian defenders, Russia was forced to admit defeat in the battle for Kyiv and refocus its offensive more clearly on southern and eastern Ukraine in order to gain control of to take over the Donbass and create a land bridge from southern Russia along the Black Sea coast to Odessa.
Another element in Russia’s war plans became clearer last week when a Russian general, Rustam Minnekaev, let slip that the proposed “land corridor” would extend to Moldova and completely cut off Ukraine’s access to the sea.
Under these plans, Russia’s military control would extend into the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, where Russian-backed separatists declared independence 30 years ago and where Russia still has a military base.
Moldova, which is constitutionally neutral, has done its best not to be dragged into the conflict – but Russia seems determined to drag the former Soviet republic west of Ukraine into the mix.
On Monday, attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at an empty security service building in Tiraspol, the Transnistrian capital. Officials in Moldova and Ukraine dismissed it as a Russian “false flag” operation. A RPG launcher disposed of at the scene, of a type used by Russia rather than Ukraine, clearly bore a “Z” symbol.
Blasts early Tuesday destroyed two nearby communications towers used to relay Russian radio and television broadcasts in the region – not targets Russians would choose to provoke.
The breakaway region, funded by Russia for decades, has a population of nearly half a million, a third of whom identify as Russian, but with large Moldovan and Ukrainian minorities. Long lines quickly formed at the main border crossing into Moldova after Tuesday’s attacks, fueled by fears that the Russians might try to mobilize local people to fight in Ukraine.
Later on Tuesday, Putin was due to meet UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Moscow – much to the chagrin of the Ukrainian government, which says he has no mandate to negotiate on its behalf.