Moscow is “refining” its nuclear doctrine in the face of Western policies, which appear to be intentionally geared towards escalation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
His comments come as Ukraine is urging Western arms donors to greenlight the use of their weapons for long-range strikes deep inside Russia. On Tuesday, Lavrov said Moscow is interpreting those requests as a distraction from the West’s own role in ratcheting up tensions with Russia.
”This is a ruse. The West does not want to avoid escalation. The West is, as they say, asking for trouble,” he told journalists during a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Shaya Mohsen Al-Zindani of the Aden-based government of Yemen.
Lavrov argued that statements by US officials claiming that Europe would suffer first in a new world war exposed a flaw in American geopolitical thinking. “Planners in the US are convinced that they can sit on the sidelines” of a hypothetical war with Russia, he suggested.
“The American mentality is that of a master, who sits on the other coast convinced of his safety and that others will do the dirty work for him. He expects others to die for him, not just Ukrainians, but also Europeans, it appears,” Lavrov said.
US officials are “like small children playing with matches. The handling of nuclear weapons is a dangerous thing for the grownups,” he added.
”We have our nuclear doctrine, which is being refined at the moment, by the way, and which the Americans are well aware of,” he said.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows the deployment of the weapons in retaliation for a first strike by the enemy or when the existence of the Russian nation state is at risk. The government has indicated in recent months that the key document may be altered in the face of what it perceives as an existential threat posed to Russia by NATO.
The US reportedly intends to significantly increase its deployment of nuclear weapons after existing limitations under a bilateral reduction treaty with Russia expire in February 2026. A roadmap for that was reportedly approved by President Joe Biden in March in the classified Nuclear Employment Guidance. The US media has claimed that the policy change was guided by a desire to compete with China.