Sergei Lavrov’s comments come just days after Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear forces on special alert
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that if a third world war were to take place it would involve nuclear weapons.
Speaking on the seventh day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lavrov told Al Jazeera, “world war three will be a devastating nuclear war”.
His comments come just three days after Vladimir Putin caused widespread panic after ordering Russia’s nuclear forces to a “special regime of combat duty”.
Lavrov’s remarks follow a pre-recorded speech delivered to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where he claimed Kyiv was seeking to obtain nuclear weapons. He said the prospect was a “real danger” that required a Russian response.
Lavrov told the Geneva disarmament meeting on Tuesday: “Ukraine still has Soviet technologies and the means of delivery of such weapons.
“We cannot fail to respond to this real danger.”
The speech was delivered to a small crowd after diplomats from countries including Britain, the US, and France left the room when Lavrov’s video message began to play.
Lavrov had been scheduled to appear at the meeting in person, but according to the Russian state-owned RIA news agency, his plane was unable to travel through airspace that the European Union has closed to Russian planes.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the House of Commons Putin was committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Johnson said the bombing of innocent civilians “in my view already fully qualifies as a war crime”.
Ukrainian emergency services have that more than 2,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed during the invasion, Sky News reported Wednesday.
Earlier, this week the prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague announced plans to launch an investigation into possible war crimes committed in Ukraine.
Johnson said he was sure “the whole house” would support an investigation.
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