Lavrov warns the West not to play with fire

Ukraine's demands to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russia are blackmail, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, TASS reports.

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"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.

Details

The Storm Shadow is a Franco-British low-observable, long-range air-launched cruise missile developed since 1994 by Matra and British Aerospace, and now manufactured by MBDA. "Storm Shadow" is the weapon's British name; in France it is called SCALP-EG (which stands for "Système de Croisière Autonome à Longue Portée – Emploi Général"; English: "Long Range Autonomous Cruise Missile System – General Purpose"). The missile is based on the French-developed Apache anti-runway cruise missile, but differs in that it carries a unitary warhead instead of cluster munitions.

Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov is a Russian diplomat who has served as the foreign minister of Russia since 2004. He is the longest-serving foreign minister since the Tsarist era. Lavrov served as the permanent representative of Russia to the United Nations from 1994 to 2004.