Russia will see the deployment of F-16 jets in Ukraine as a direct nuclear threat to Moscow, warns Sergei Lavrov.
Russia will view the deployment of F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine as a direct nuclear threat to the Kremlin, Putin’s foreign minister has warned.
Sergei Lavrov says that Russia has privately warned the United States, Britain and France about the dire risks of the planned move to give Kiev the advanced fighter jets.
He hinted that the use of the F-16, for which Ukrainian pilots are now being trained, could lead Putin to launch tactical nuclear weapons.
He said the move was “just one example of an extremely dangerous turn of events: US plans to transfer F-16 fighter jets to the Kiev regime.”
“We have informed the nuclear powers, the United States, Great Britain and France, that Russia cannot ignore the ability of these planes to carry nuclear weapons.
“No amount of guarantees will help here.”
An F-16 fighter jet flies over the U.S. Forces Spangdahlem Air Base in Spangdahlem, Germany, Wednesday, June 14, 2023, during Exercise Air Defender 2023.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (C) attends the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference with Russia at the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia on July 13, 2023.
Lavrov’s warning comes despite the West’s denial that it will supply Ukraine with nuclear weapons.
Lavrov said: ‘In the course of combat operations, our military is not going to decide whether or not each particular aircraft of this type is equipped to deliver nuclear weapons.
“We will consider the very fact that the Ukrainian armed forces have such systems as a threat from the West in the nuclear sphere.”
He warned: “The United States and its NATO satellites are creating risks of a direct armed confrontation with Russia, and this is fraught with catastrophic consequences.”
The ultra-loyalist chief diplomat said: “The conditions for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons are clearly defined in our Military Doctrine.
‘They are well known, and I will not repeat them once more.’
The United States and its allies could deliver the F-16 jets to Ukraine in the coming months.
The foreign minister alleged that NATO, which completed its summit in Vilnius on Wednesday, is “steadily lowering the threshold for the use of force and developing nuclear capability in military planning.”
He claimed in an interview with Lenta that ‘the organization has completely returned to Cold War schemes… on the basis of ideology… dividing the world into democracies and autocracies.’
Yesterday, he was quoted as saying that Russia would protect its own “legitimate security interests” when world leaders meet in Vilnius for the first day of the NATO summit.
He added that Russia was taking “appropriate” steps in response to the possible accession of Sweden and Ukraine to NATO.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at a NATO Summit event in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 12, 2023.
Throughout the war, Russia’s allies have ratcheted up the rhetoric about a nuclear deterrent, threatening the West with an apocalyptic response for what they perceive as an escalation.
In May, another of Putin’s top allies warned that a “nuclear apocalypse” would become more likely if the West continues to supply Ukraine with increasingly powerful weapons.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made the chilling comment after US President Joe Biden said he would back a joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets.
The more weapons are supplied, the more dangerous the world will be.
“And the more destructive these weapons are, the more likely the scenario of what is commonly called a nuclear apocalypse becomes,” Medvedev said.
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