JAKARTA - Russia has told the world not to underestimate the grave risk of nuclear war it says it wants to reduce, warning Western conventional weapons are legitimate targets in Ukraine, where fighting is raging in the east.
"The risks are now quite large," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian state television, according to a transcript of the interview on the ministry's website.
"I don't want to artificially increase that risk. A lot of people like it. The danger is serious, real. And we shouldn't underestimate it."
Foreign Minister Lavrov has been asked about the importance of avoiding a Third World War, as well as whether the current situation is comparable to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the lowest point in US-Soviet relations.
Russia has lost its "last hope of scaring the world not to support Ukraine. This only means Moscow is feeling defeat," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter after Lavrov's interview.
Regarding arms assistance for Ukraine, Foreign Minister Lavrov reiterated Russia's warning, saying it was tantamount to direct war involvement with Moscow.
During a visit to Kyiv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin pledged more military assistance to Ukraine.
Moscow's ambassador to Washington told the United States to halt shipments, warning Western weapons were fomenting conflict.
"NATO, in essence, is engaging in war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy. War means war," said Foreign Minister Lavrov.
Russia's two-month invasion of Ukraine, the largest incursion in a European country since 1945, has left thousands dead or injured, cities reduced to rubble and forced more than 5 million people to flee abroad.
Moscow called its actions a "special operation" to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists. Ukraine and the West say this is a false pretext for a war of unwarranted aggression by President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has yet to capture one of the largest cities. His troops were forced to withdraw from the outskirts of Kyiv in the face of fierce resistance, now having concentration in eastern Ukraine.
"It is clear that every day, and especially today, when the third month of our resistance has begun, everyone in Ukraine is concerned about peace, about when it will all end," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Monday night.
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