Russia’s top diplomat has said the West is locked in a proxy war with his country that could escalate into a nuclear-armed world war as Western nations step up their commitment to defending Ukraine.
“The risk is serious, real. It should not be underestimated,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview on Russian state television broadcast on Monday evening. “Under no circumstances should a third world war take place,” he said, adding that “there can be no winners in a nuclear war.”
Mr Lavrov said the West is increasing the risk of a major war by providing weapons to Ukraine: “NATO is essentially going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Mr Lavrov’s remarks were aimed at discouraging countries from supporting Ukraine. “It just means that Moscow feels defeat in Ukraine,” he wrote on Twitter. “Therefore, the world must redouble its support for Ukraine to prevail and safeguard European and global security.”
Russia’s top diplomat said risk of nuclear world war should not be underestimated after US offered more military support to Ukraine; Defense officials from more than 40 countries gathered in Germany as shelling continued in Kharkiv. Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly raised the specter of nuclear war, invoking his country’s nuclear arsenal to keep the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from interfering in the conflict.
Russia’s attempt to overthrow Ukraine’s elected government with a rapid military invasion in late February failed, and Moscow is now focusing on seizing areas in eastern Ukraine using mass artillery and airstrikes.
The West is supporting Ukraine with fresh arms and ammunition to thwart Russia.
On Tuesday, Germany said it would overhaul and send decommissioned anti-aircraft gun tanks, known as Flakpanzer Gepard or Cheetah, to Ukraine, ending its longstanding reluctance to give tanks to the country. Germany will supply about 50 of the German-made SPGs, marking one of the first major shipments of non-Soviet weapons systems by a Western country to Ukraine, two government officials said.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week that his government was treading cautiously to avoid nuclear war.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday.
Photo: Maxim Shipenkov/Associated Press
The UK signaled a more aggressive stance on Russia on Tuesday when a UK defense secretary, James Heappey, said it was “perfectly legitimate” for Ukraine to use Western weapons to hit logistics and supply lines in Russia.
For months Britain has been supplying arms on condition that they are used to protect Ukraine from a Russian attack, not offensively.
“Things that the international community is now providing to Ukraine have the reach to be deployed across borders,” Mr Heappey, Britain’s Minister for Armed Forces, told Times Radio on Tuesday. “That’s not necessarily a problem.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at a meeting with defense ministers on Tuesday that Ukraine has received more than $5 billion in equipment to defend against Russian forces, including two US military aid packages worth $800 million each.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, wearing a blue tie, met with his counterparts from more than 40 nations in Germany on Tuesday.
Photo: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
A day earlier, Mr Austin said the US is aiming for Russia’s military capabilities to be dismantled and Ukraine’s to be bolstered to prevent Moscow from attempting to seize territory by force in the future.
“We want Russia to be weakened to the point where it can no longer do the things it did when it invaded Ukraine,” Mr Austin said after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were the senior US officials who attended became the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Mr Austin began a meeting with other defense ministers, including Ukraine’s Oleksii Reznikov and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany on Tuesday. Topics on the agenda include updating representatives of more than 40 countries on the latest information from the battlefield in Ukraine, security assistance to Kyiv and long-term strengthening of NATO’s defense industrial base in support of Ukraine’s defense, a defense official said.
A soldier stepped on an abandoned tank in Chernihiv, Ukraine, on Monday.
Photo: Adrienne Surprenant /MYOP for The Wall Street Journal
Chernihiv City Hospital #2, Ukraine, on Monday. The plant was shelled in mid-March.
Photo: Adrienne Surprenant/MYOP for The Wall Street Journal
Defense ministers were expected to address Ukraine’s needs for ammunition and weapon systems that NATO sees as non-standard, as well as discussions about whether the former Soviet republic could switch to standard NATO equipment, the official said. For example, howitzers designed to fire 152mm rounds cannot accept the 155mm caliber.
The focus on heavy artillery and armored vehicles comes as Russia is withdrawing some of its forces from near towns in northern Ukraine and instead focusing on the eastern Donbass region in a high-stakes conflict in wide-open terrain.
A basement used as a shelter in the frontline town of Hulyaipole, southeast of Zaporizhia, on Monday.
Photo: Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
An exhibition of photos and flowers commemorates the war dead in the western city of Lemberg.
Photo: Miguel Gutierrez/Zuma Press
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was scheduled to meet with Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday and Ukrainian Presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Kuleba on Thursday to discuss ways to end the conflict.
In his Monday night interview, Lavrov said there had been no progress in peace talks with Kyiv, but that the conflict would end in a treaty that would depend on the situation on the ground. A senior US official said Monday the US wants to ensure Ukraine has “the strongest hand” in such peace talks.
As Putin’s army faced fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces, bolstered by large infusions of Western weaponry, concerns have grown in Washington and allied capitals that Russia may consider using a so-called tactical nuclear weapon to gain the upper hand on the battlefield to win.
Earlier this month, Russia went on to warn that it could deploy nuclear forces in and around Kaliningrad – a Russian exclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland – and increase its military presence there if Finland and Sweden join the NATO alliance.
Finland and Sweden are considering joining NATO and will make a decision in the coming weeks. Both countries have long traditions of military neutrality, but the Russian invasion has spurred public opinion and political consensus in both countries to seek membership in the US-led alliance.
—Bojan Pancevski and Max Colchester contributed to this article.
write to James Marson at [email protected]
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