Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned in an exclusive interview with Newsweek, published on Sept. 21, that the U.S. risks becoming a combatant in Ukraine. “Today, Western states funnel weapons and military hardware into the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, and train Ukraine’s armed forces. NATO and U.S. arms are used to fire at the Russian territory bordering Ukraine, killing civilians there,” he said. “The Pentagon does not hide the fact of passing on to Kiev intelligence and target designations for strikes. We record the presence of American mercenaries and advisers ‘in the battlefield.’ The United States, in fact, is teetering on the brink of turning into a party to conflict. This is (in response) to your question about the risk of a direct collision between nuclear powers.”
Otherwise, Lavrov reiterated much of what Moscow has previously said about Ukraine and its relations with the U.S. and other countries, but for an American audience. “With its actions to nurture a Russophobic neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine, deploy military equipment and turn its territory into a springboard for containing Russia, the West left us no choice but to conduct a special military operation,” Lavrov said when asked if the two sides were closer to negotiating. “Its [Russia’s] goals are well-known: protection of the population of Donbass, elimination of threats to Russia’s security, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. All of them remain relevant and will be achieved, no matter how long it would take.”
Lavrov explicitly asserted that the goal of the so-called West is the defeat of Russia on the battlefield. “The United States and its allies are ready to sacrifice Ukraine for the sake of their geopolitical goals. To achieve them, they pump the country with weapons, and this leads to an escalated and prolonged conflict. It puts off the prospects of its settlement,” he said. “Washington is not interested in establishing peace and tranquility in Ukraine. That became clear already in March, when Moscow and Kiev came close to reaching mutual agreements. Such a turn of events obviously frightened the Americans and the British, so they actually forbade Ukraine to conduct further dialogue with Russia. Since then, the Ukrainian authorities have been shying away from the negotiation process.”
When asked about U.S.-Russian relations, Lavrov replied that interstate dialogue between the two sides is practically frozen. “It is objectively not possible to maintain normal communication with Washington declaring the strategic defeat of Russia as an objective,” he said. “It equally pertains to the consultations on strategic stability and arms control discontinued by the American side.”
