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| Moscow ‘ready for larger-scale provocations’ by the West, says Lavrov | Moscow ‘ready for larger-scale provocations’ by the West, says Lavrov |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Western provocation, the prospect of WWIII, and China’s closer stance with Russia are just some of the topics that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has spoken about with RT France. | Western provocation, the prospect of WWIII, and China’s closer stance with Russia are just some of the topics that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has spoken about with RT France. |
| “We will be ready for larger-scale provocations too. But our answer is very simple – if they talk to us through the media, we will respond through the media too, but specifically and in a correct manner,” Lavrov said, answering questions from RT France, Paris Match and Le Figaro. | “We will be ready for larger-scale provocations too. But our answer is very simple – if they talk to us through the media, we will respond through the media too, but specifically and in a correct manner,” Lavrov said, answering questions from RT France, Paris Match and Le Figaro. |
| Going further, he said a third world war is an unimaginable scenario, noting that “everybody would be sane enough not to let it happen.” However, an aggravating factor is the absence of any dialogue between the Russian military and NATO. | |
| Tensions are still high between the two, Lavrov said, citing the recent mid-air incident in which a Spanish fighter jet accidentally released an air-to-air missile during a training mission in Estonian skies. “Thank God, there were no casualties, but what if it would have landed on Russian soil? Everything is so close there.” | |
| It all comes as the US is updating its nuclear doctrine, the top diplomat stated. | |
| The toxic political climate in European capitals and Washington makes mending ties extremely hard, Lavrov added. While the European Commission remains “trapped” by countries opposing reconciliation with Russia, the American elites are also fueling tensions. “I think it’s silly to remain hostages to the whim of American lawmakers,” he said. | |
| While the West continues to slap Moscow with sanctions and trade cuts, Russia’s relations with Beijing and other Asian powers are on the rise. “We needed to compensate for the low level of economic cooperation with Europe,” the foreign minister explained. “And we saw growing opportunities for that in China, India, Japan, Korea.” | |
| China, after all, is Russia’s major international partner, he noted. |