Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s comments suggesting NATO should launch pre-emptive strikes against Russia confirmed the need for what he called his “special operation ” in Ukraine.
“In doing so, he essentially presented the world with more evidence of the threats posed by the Kyiv regime,” Lavrov said. “That’s why a special military operation was launched to neutralize them.”
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In a discussion with an Australian think tank on Thursday, Zelensky said he believed the strikes were necessary to prevent any use of nuclear weapons.
He did not go into detail about what kind of strikes he meant, and made no reference to any need for nuclear strikes.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced Zelensky’s comments as “a call to start another world war with monstrous and unpredictable consequences,” according to the RIA news agency.
Russia launched its “special military operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” its neighbor. Ukraine and Western nations have rejected it as a baseless pretext for the invasion.
