Sergei Lavrov's stark warning to the West

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Western countries about Moscow's nuclear prowess during his feature on Rossiya-1’s ‘60 Minutes’ program, according to the Russian News Agency TASS.

Lavrov is a close ally of Vladimir Putin and was the latest leading Russian political figure to caution the country’s enemies about challenging the Kremlin's willingness to use nuclear weapons if the security of the Russian state is threatened. 

"We do not aim to escalate the risks of nuclear weapon usage as we strongly uphold the principle that there are no winners in a nuclear conflict," Lavrov said during his interview according to a translation of his remarks published by TASS. 

“However, I would caution against testing our resolve and commitment to safeguarding our legitimate national interests by any means necessary," Lavrov continued before he went on to blame the West for the current global worry about nuclear weapons being used by Russia. 

According to Newsweek, Lavrov explained that Russia has never initiated discussions about what to do with nuclear weapons or whether it would be possible for Moscow to use them. He implied all talk of nuclear war came from the West. 

"All other proposals, including concepts for a nuclear war or similar statements, have exclusively originated from Western capitals,” Lavrov explained during his interview.

The Russian Foreign Affairs Minister went on to accuse several North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states of making threatening statements about Russia’s nuclear stockpiles and the possibility that Moscow might use a nuclear weapon in the future. 

Lavrov’s comments came just two months after Russia revamped its nuclear doctrine to make it easier for Moscow to respond to the changing nature of modern threats that the Russian state is facing as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Under the changes signed off on by Putin on November 19th, any large-scale attack on Russia with conventional weapons, drones, or aircraft could meet the conditions needed for a nuclear response from Moscow according to BBC News. 

Any such attack on Belarus, or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty, also qualifies as an issue that could be met with nuclear retaliation. Moscow also added a concerning condition that could make nuclear war more likely in the future. 

Russia’s new nuclear doctrine outlines that any aggression towards Russia by a state in a coalition, or a non-nuclear power that is being supported by a nuclear power, would be seen as aggression by the whole group, BBC reported. 

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons noted the updates to Russia’s nuclear doctrine “were dangerously ambiguous” and added that they “blur the line between conventional and nuclear attack and undermine predictability, increasing the risk of nuclear war.”

Despite Lavrov’s claim that the West was responsible for all the nuclear war rhetoric, many political leaders in Russia have made concerning statements and threats about Moscow using nuclear weapons as a result of growing tensions with the West.  

For example, a report from Reuters published in March 2024 cited that Vladimir Putin had issued at least 11 overt nuclear warnings between February 24th, 2022, and March 13th, 2024. That number has likely only increased since. 

“President Putin has increasingly used the threat of the Russian nuclear arsenal to pressurize the West over its military and diplomatic support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in February 2022,” explained a brief from the UK House of Commons report Claire Mills. 

“As part of this campaign of nuclear pressure, Russia has placed its weapons on heightened alert, tested and deployed new nuclear capabilities, threatened to resume nuclear testing, and suspended participation in a key nuclear arms control treaty with the US,” Mills added. 

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