Russia Warns World War III ‘Will Be Nuclear’
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov warns of destruction
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Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has warned that a third world war would be “nuclear and destructive” amid the current invasion of Ukraine.
Lavrov said in an interview with Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel:
“The third world war will be nuclear and destructive …
"President Biden is an experienced man and has previously stated that the only alternative to war are sanctions.”
Lavrov added that Russia would be in “real danger” if Ukraine ever acquired nuclear weapons.
But there is no evidence that Ukraine was attempting to acquire nuclear weapons since it gave up its nukes in the early 1990s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
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The specter of nuclear war was raised when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his country’s strategic deterrence forces to be on a heightened state of alert.
According to some analysts, the order was meant to intimidate the United States and NATO.
Russia possesses thousands of nuclear weapons, but a nuclear war would lead to the annihilation of both sides.
When Joe Biden was asked whether Americans should be worried about nuclear war, he responded, “No.”
“We are assessing President Putin’s directive. And at this time, we see no reason to change our own alert levels,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday, adding that the United States will not attempt to escalate the rhetoric after Putin’s comments and order.
“We think provocative rhetoric like this regarding nuclear weapons is dangerous, adds to the risk of miscalculation, should be avoided, and we will not indulge in it,” she added.
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Russia also claimed its forces captured the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, reported Reuters.
But the adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, Oleksiy Arestovych, said that “the city has not fallen, our side continues to defend” amid ongoing fighting, highlighting the opposing claims of military victories on both sides of the conflict.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service told The Associated Press that at least 2,000 civilians had been killed so far.
As The Epoch Times noted:
And Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, with a population of about 1.5 million, came under heavy fire again Wednesday.
At the same time, satellite photos from Maxar show a vast convoy of Russian tanks and other vehicles spanning miles outside Kyiv.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said Russia had told the agency that its military had taken control around Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant, but operations there were continuing normally.
