Russia Warns US: Third World War Would Not Be Limited to Europe

(Patria) - Official Moscow has stated that the West is playing with fire by considering allowing Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia with its missiles and warned the US that a third world war would not be limited to Europe, reports RFE/RL.

Ukraine attacked Russia's western Kursk region on August 6 and seized part of the territory in the largest foreign attack on this country since World War II. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would provide an adequate response to the attack.

Sergei Lavrov, Putin's foreign minister for more than 20 years, said today that the West is seeking to escalate the war in Ukraine and is "asking for trouble" by considering Ukrainian requests to ease restrictions on the use of weapons supplied from abroad.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much wider war that would involve the world's largest nuclear powers, although he has said Russia does not want a conflict with the US-led NATO alliance.

- Now we confirm once again that playing with fire - and they are like little children playing with matches - is a very dangerous thing for grown-up uncles and aunts who are entrusted with nuclear weapons in one or another Western country - Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.

He notes that "Americans unequivocally associate talks about a third world war as something that will, God forbid, if it happens, affect exclusively Europe."

Lavrov added that Russia is "clarifying" its nuclear doctrine.

Russia's 2020 nuclear doctrine specifies when its president would consider using nuclear weapons - mainly in response to an attack using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, or conventional weapons "when the very existence of the state is threatened."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this month that the attack on Russia's Kursk region showed that the Kremlin's threats of retaliation were a bluff.

He emphasized that Ukraine, due to restrictions imposed by allies, cannot use the weapons at its disposal to hit some Russian military targets. He called on allies to be bolder in their decisions on how to help Kyiv in the war.

Russia said that Western weapons, including British tanks and American missile systems, were used by Ukraine in Kursk. Kyiv confirmed that it uses American HIMARS rockets to remove bridges in Kursk.

Washington says it was not informed of Ukraine's plans ahead of the sudden incursion into Kursk. The United States also said it did not participate in the operation.

Head of Russia's foreign intelligence service Sergei Naryshkin said today that Moscow does not believe Western claims that it has nothing to do with the attack on Kursk. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov adds that US involvement is an "obvious fact."

The New York Times reported that the US and UK provided Ukraine with satellite images and other information about the Kursk region in the days following the Ukrainian attack.

The Times stated that the goal of the intelligence data is to help Ukraine better monitor Russian reinforcements.