MOSCOW: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday accused Western politicians of considering nuclear war, one week after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.

He also accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of presiding over “a society where Nazism is flourishing”.

“I would like to point out that it’s in the heads of Western politicians that the idea of a nuclear war is spinning constantly, and not in the heads of Russians,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian and foreign media.

Lavrov accused NATO of seeking to maintain its supremacy and said that while Russia had a lot of good will, it could not let anyone undermine its interests.

The Russian military operation against Ukraine is aimed, among other things, at ensuring that Kyiv does not join NATO, he said.

Lavrov said Russian forces were attacking military targets in Ukraine but added that the term ‘collateral damage’ has been in use since the Western campaigns in Iraq and Libya.

Agencies