According to Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, Moscow believes that its “signal” to the West via the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile is “taken seriously.”
Russia is prepared to use “any means” to defend itself, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that he hoped Ukraine’s allies responded “seriously” to Moscow’s recent use of a hypersonic missile in the crisis there.
The US and its allies “must understand that we would be ready to use any means not to allow them to succeed in what they call strategic defeat of Russia,” Lavrov stated during a Thursday interview with Tucker Carlson, a prominent figure in US media.
The nearly three-year conflict escalated two weeks ago when Russia launched its new Oreshnik hypersonic missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Following Ukraine’s strikes on Russian territory, which occurred after the United States approved the deployment of its ATACMS weapon system in such attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has subsequently vowed to use the weapon on Kiev.
“We are sending signals and we hope that the last one, a couple of weeks ago, the signal with the new weapons system called Oreshnik… was taken seriously,” Lavrov stated.
Although Lavrov said that Russia does not wish to intensify the conflict and wishes to “avoid any misunderstanding” with Washington and its allies, he issued a warning that “we will send additional messages if they don’t draw necessary conclusions.”
According to Putin, air defenses cannot intercept the Oreshnik missile because it travels at ten times the speed of sound.
The strike has been referred to as “the latest bout of Russian madness” by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has also asked for improved air defense systems to counter the new danger.
“This is a fact.”
Lavrov charged in the extensive interview that the US was trying to intimidate Russia and other countries on the global scene.
In regard to Ukraine, he stated that Moscow was “ready for any eventuality but we strongly prefer peaceful solution through negotiations on the basis of respecting legitimate security interests of Russia.”
The top Russian diplomat described the possible terms of such a peace agreement, including the requirement that Kiev recognize Russia’s claim over Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, and Zaporizhzhia.
“They are now part of the Russian Federation according to the constitution and this is a reality,” he stated.
He charged that the administration of US President Joe Biden was intensifying the war in Ukraine “to leave a legacy to the Trump administration as bad as they can.”
Lavrov characterized Donald Trump, the US president-elect who will assume office in January and has promised to end the conflict quickly without providing a plan, as a “strong person.”
“I think he’s a very strong person, a person who wants results, who doesn’t like procrastination on anything,” he stated.
“Collective discipline”
He said that Palestinians were suffering “collective punishment, which is against international humanitarian law,” as a result of Israel’s genocide in besieged Gaza.
Moscow, according to Lavrov, is “very much concerned” about the recent surge in bloodshed in Syria, where opposition forces have taken large areas of land away from the government of Bashar al Assad, a regional ally of Russia.
He stated that he would discuss the Syrian crisis with Iranian and Turkish authorities on Friday.
