Editor's Pick:

Sources Agencies

Moscow - Dec 01- 2022

During the Ukraine conflict, Minister Sergey Lavrov warned of the "huge" risk of nuclear war and defended the Kremlin's bombing of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. He also predicted that relations with Europe would never be the same.

“The potential for a nuclear war to break out is quite high, even if it is started using conventional weapons ".

Lavrov was quick to point out that two international declarations, one by Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden in June 2021 and another by the five major states that possess such weapons in January of this year, have recently been promoted by major countries warning that no one can win a nuclear war, and therefore it must be avoided. Despite these calls, the diplomat warned that the threat remains real, a situation for which he blames Western countries for their support for Ukraine: "We were ready to go further and say that not only should a nuclear war not be unleashed, but that any war between nuclear powers is also unacceptable. The potential for a nuclear war to break out is quite high, even if it is started using conventional weapons ".

The foreign minister justified Russian attacks on power plants and other civilian infrastructure on Ukrainian territory on the grounds that "they provide combat potential to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, to the nationalist battalions, and on them depends on the delivery of numerous weapons with which the West is showering Ukraine to kill Russians".

After the September and October battlefield setbacks in Ukraine, the Kremlin raised the nuclear rhetoric. On the one hand, it said it would defend the annexed territory 'by all means'. President Vladimir Putin added that this decision 'is not a bluff'. On the other hand, he claimed that Kiev was preparing to use "radioactive dirty weapons", an accusation rejected by Ukraine.

Washington warned that a Russian attack involving dirty or nuclear weapons would not go unpunished, and the form of the US response was given in writing by CIA Director William Burns to his Russian foreign intelligence counterpart, Sergey Narishkin, in Ankara on 14 November.

Lavrov opened the door to a return to dialogue, but on one condition: "If our Western interlocutors realize their mistakes and express their willingness to return to the discussion of the documents we proposed in December". That is, to take up the demands Russia put on the table before the invasion of Ukraine, which called for the exit from NATO of all countries that joined the Alliance after the Founding Act of 1997, which would mean leaving out all nations east of Germany.

Lavrov was skeptical: "I doubt they will find the strength and intelligence to do this. But if this happens suddenly, we will be ready to talk to them again". The head of Russian diplomacy added that Moscow's proposals were "honest" because they did not demand the withdrawal of US forces from Europe and the dissolution of the Atlantic Alliance from the outset.

Statements against Borrell and the EU

In any case, Moscow considers the relationship with the EU to be almost non-existent. "To answer whether Moscow is being cut off from European diplomacy, we must first find out whether it exists," he said, before attacking EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell for saying that "this conflict must end with Ukraine's victory on the battlefield". Lavrov said: "We need to know when sane people will appear in European diplomacy". He then said he misses "gestures through diplomatic channels" beyond the visits to Moscow to see Putin by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other European leaders before the war began.

Moscow believes that the past cordiality will not return and that it is necessary to negotiate a new security framework "on basically new principles". "It is clear that if our Western neighbors, and it is impossible to stop being in contact as neighbors, are interested in restoring joint work on European security, its restoration will not be successful because restoration means a return to the past, but we will not return to a situation of normality", the diplomat predicted.

Lavrov also focused his attention on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an organization that came into being during the Cold War as a platform for communication between the two sides. The Russian foreign minister considered that its existence "has been devalued" by NATO's expansion since the 1990s. Since 2014, NATO has monitored compliance with the ceasefire in Ukraine's Donbas region, and its daily reports revealed all attacks by both sides - the Ukrainian army and Moscow-backed separatists - that had been recorded up to 2022. However, the mission was forced to leave the country after the Russian offensive in February.

Criticism of the OSCE came from all sides on Thursday. While Lavrov claimed that the independent organization is influenced "by the numerical superiority of the West" within its membership, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said on Twitter that the OSCE "is on the road to hell" and called for Moscow's expulsion because "everything has been tried with regard to Russia: pandering to it, appeasing it, being nice,  being neutral, compromising or not calling a spade a spade".

The head of Russian diplomacy also denounced the isolation to which his country is being subjected. Lavrov criticized the creation of institutions parallel to existing ones without Moscow's participation, such as the European Political Community, a framework for political dialogue promoted by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, so that the EU can interact with countries that are not part of the EU project. "President Macron proudly said: 'We invited everyone except Russia and Belarus'," the senior official recalled.

The regime of Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko has also been involved in the war in Ukraine, and Lavrov said that this collaboration could play a more active role in the future. If in the spring it served as a platform for Russia's offensive on Kiev, in September Belarus announced the creation of joint forces with Moscow under the Union State, a supranational entity created in the 1990s to achieve greater political and military integration. "Our presidents are paying increased attention to this issue (joint deployment) because of ongoing provocations, including from Ukraine," Lavrov said.