Moscow warned the West against further escalating tensions with it, Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Thursday.
Russian officials in recent days have ramped up their rhetoric against Western powers.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that if a third World War were to take place, it would involve nuclear weapons and be destructive, the RIA news agency reported.
Lavrov has said that Russia, which launched what it calls a special military operation against Ukraine last week, would face a “real danger” if Kyiv acquired nuclear weapons.
Lavrov, quoted by Russian news agencies RIA and TASS on Tuesday, also said Moscow found it unacceptable that some European countries hosted US nuclear weapons.
He was also quoted as saying that the West must not build military facilities in any countries of the former Soviet Union.
On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his defense chiefs to put the country’s “deterrence forces” on high alert, accusing Western countries of taking “unfriendly” steps against his country amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow has the world’s second-largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and a huge cache of ballistic missiles which form the backbone of the country’s deterrence forces.
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