Moscow ready to use “any means” to prevent West from inflicting “strategic defeat”: Russian minister Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said in an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson that the new hypersonic missile used by his/her country to attack Ukraine shows that Russia is abandoning its goal of delivering a “strategic defeat” to the West. Willing to use any means to prevent obtaining. ” on the country.

Lavrov, quoted by the Russian news agency TASS, said in an interview with an American journalist that Russia is ready to send additional messages if the West does not draw the necessary conclusions after the use of the Oroshnik missile.

A top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin said a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine is only possible if Kiev abandons its plans to join NATO, closes Western military bases in the country and cancels exercises involving foreign troops. .

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia had used its new Oroshnik hypersonic missile in a strike against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on November 21.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov clarified that the Dnipro attack was a response to the West’s decision to allow Ukraine to fire long-range conventional missiles at Russia.

According to reports, Ukraine used US ATACMS and Britain-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to attack Russian territory.

Lavrov told Carlson in the interview that Western thinking that Russia’s “red lines” can be removed is a big mistake.

“If they are following the logic that some Westerners have been saying recently, which is that there is no confidence that Russia has red lines, they have announced their red lines, these red lines over and over again Being transferred. This is a very serious mistake,” the top Russian diplomat said.

he/she also said that statements by some NATO officials about the possibility of preventive strikes on Russia raise concerns.

“We have no intention of exterminating the Ukrainian people,” Russian state media quoted Lavrov as saying to Carlson. They are brothers and sisters of the Russian people.”

Meanwhile, the Russian minister, in his/her over an hour-and-a-half long interview with Carlson, was quoted by TASS news agency as saying that Russia wants normal relations with the United States and sees no reason why the two countries cannot cooperate.

A top Russian diplomat made it clear that Russia will assess US President-elect Donald Trump’s administration with concrete steps, but outgoing US President Joe Biden wants to leave Trump a heavy legacy.

Lavrov was quoted in the interview as saying that Trump is a strong and friendly politician, but he/she is not pro-Russian, according to TASS.

According to Lavrov, the ball is in Trump’s court regarding Russia’s contacts with the US President. President-elect Donald Trump has said he/she will end the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022 without specifying how, and has criticized billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine under Joe Biden.

Lavrov further said that many in Russia would like to make the lifting of sanctions a condition of a deal to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, but the country has faced them and emerged stronger.

“And we learned a lot after the restrictions started. The sanctions began under President Obama. They continued on a much larger scale under Donald Trump’s first term. And these sanctions are absolutely unprecedented under the Biden administration. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, you know. They will never kill us, so they are making us stronger,” Lavrov explained in his/her interview with Carlsen.