Ukraine's demands to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russia are blackmail, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, TASS reports.
"This is blackmail, this is an attempt to pretend that the West wants to avoid excessive escalation, but in fact this is deceit," Lavrov said. "We once again stress this out that this is like playing with fire, but they, like little children, play with matches. This is a very dangerous thing for grown-up men and women who manage nuclear weapons of one or another Western country,” he added.
The Russian Foreign Minister also noted that Western countries "are asking for an escalation of the conflict with Russia and are not trying to avoid it."
Earlier, The Guardian reported that Ukraine intends to obtain permission from the West to use long-range Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian territory. According to the publication, Kyiv believes that this could force Moscow to begin negotiations to end the hostilities. Ukrainian officials told the publication that the "demonstrative attack" was intended to show the vulnerability of targets close to Moscow. However, this is a high-risk strategy that does not find support in the United States, The Guardian wrote.