Russia's Foreign Minister Says World War III Will Be Nuclear
Tough talk about the potential for nuclear war came from a top Russian official on Wednesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that World War III would be “nuclear and destructive,” according to the Independent.
The comment comes in the context of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s threat that nations trying to “hinder” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will face “consequences you have never seen in your history.”
Putin on Sunday put Russia’s nuclear forces at an elevated state of readiness.
Today, some French minister has said that they declared an economic war on Russia. Watch your tongue, gentlemen! And don’t forget that in human history, economic wars quite often turned into real ones
— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) March 1, 2022
An aide to French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke with Putin on Monday, noted that talk of nuclear war could be a calculated step by Russia, according to WJXT.
“We can see that with President Putin’s state of mind, there is a risk of escalation,” said the aide, who spoke anonymously. “There is a risk of manipulation from President Putin to justify what is unjustifiable.”
The comments come as European nations are pouring military hardware into Ukraine in a last-ditch effort to stave off the Russian conquest of its neighbor, according to The New York Times.
“European security and defense has evolved more in the last six days than in the last two decades,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, on Tuesday.
The West holds back due to threats of nuclear war by Putin yet fails to realize that at the rate Russia is dropping bombs they will cause a nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine. Never again to genocide is happening now https://t.co/DrYLa8DjBF
— Olga Lautman ?? (@OlgaNYC1211) March 2, 2022
The Times reported that a hub for funneling weapons into Ukraine has been established in Poland, Ukraine’s western neighbor.
But there is a risk, noted Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute
“The more it ramps up you wonder how Putin will respond,” he said. “What happens if he attacks on the other side of the border? We pursue terrorists across borders, why not him?”
In 1994 Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons and joined the non proliferation treaty in return for security guarantees from Russia. To now make these claims in these circumstances is the very definition of re-writing history. https://t.co/UUbG9z9DUz
— Alan Woodward (@ProfWoodward) March 1, 2022
On Tuesday, in a video address to the Conference on Disarmament, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, Lavrov claimed the world needs to be protected from the dangers posed by Ukraine, according to Reuters.
“Today the dangers that (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy’s regime pose for neighboring countries and international security in general have increased substantially after the authorities set up in Kyiv have embarked upon dangerous games related to plans to acquire their own nuclear weapons,” he said as diplomats walked out on his address.
“Ukraine still has Soviet nuclear technologies and the means of delivery of such weapons. We cannot fail to respond to this real danger,” he said.
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