Russia ready to use ‘any means’ to prevent defeat in Ukraine: Lavrov

Russia’s top diplomat says Moscow sent the West a message with the recent use of a hypersonic missile in Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said the recent use of a hypersonic missile in the Ukraine war sought to make the West understand that Moscow was ready to use “any means” to stave off defeat.

Lavrov made the remarks in a broadcast interview with United States journalist Tucker Carlson on Thursday, claiming that the West was fighting “for keeping their hegemony over the world, on any country, any region, any continent”.

“We fight for our legitimate security interests,” he said in English.

“We are sending signals and we hope that the last one, a couple of weeks ago, the signal with the new weapons system called Oreshnik … was taken seriously,” Lavrov said.

While he insisted that Russia does not want to escalate the situation and wants to “avoid any misunderstanding” with Washington and its partners, Lavrov warned that “we will send additional messages if they don’t draw necessary conclusions.”