Russia ready to use ‘any means’ in Ukraine conflict: Foreign Minister Lavrov tells Tucker Carlson

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warns the West of Russia's readiness to use any means to prevent strategic defeat.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview broadcast on Thursday (December 6, 2024), said the use of a hypersonic missile in the Ukraine war sought to make the West understand that Moscow was ready to use any means to ensure no "strategic defeat" would be inflicted on Moscow.

Russia deployed the Oreshnik hypersonic missile against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last month in what Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin described as a test of a missile he said could not be brought down. He said Russia could bring other such missiles into action in "combat conditions" if required.

"The message is that you, I mean the U.S. and the allies of the U.S., who also provide these long-range weapons to the Kyiv regime — they must understand that we would be ready to use any means not to allow them to succeed in what they call a strategic defeat of Russia," Mr. Lavrov told U.S. journalist Tucker Carlson.

"They fight for keeping their hegemony over the world, on any country, any region, any continent. We fight for our legitimate security interests."

Speaking in English, Mr. Lavrov said the West had refused to discuss upholding security guarantees for Russia in the weeks and months before the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, called a "special military operation" in Moscow.

As Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border in early 2022, Western leaders urged Moscow not to invade its smaller neighbour. French President Emmanuel Macron met Mr. Putin three weeks before the invasion, saying he had received assurances that Russia would take no action to worsen the situation.

In his comments, Mr. Lavrov said Ukraine had lost the opportunity to maintain its territorial integrity by twice rejecting proposals for a deal, once before the full-scale war began and then in talks in April 2022 in Turkey.