On Wednesday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov accused the U.S. of “playing with fire” and engaging in a hot “hybrid war” with Russia and blamed Washington for increasing nuclear tensions.
Ryabkov’s comments came hours after Russia declared that it had deployed nuclear-capable missiles in Belarus along NATO’s border. Moscow also announced that it had refitted Belarussian jets with the capability to carry and drop nuclear bombs. The Kremlin spokesman then went on to blame the U.S. for the escalation, saying that Russia was not doing anything more than what America had already done, referring to the U.S. stationing nuclear weapon on the territory of its European allies.
“I think we have already passed this period [of Cold War]. Now we are in the phase of a hot conflict with the United States. We are witnessing the direct involvement of that country in a hybrid war with Russia on various fronts,” Ryabkov added.
Despite Russia thrusting the threat of nuclear war on the world by invading Ukraine, Ryabkov insisted that Russia was facing nuclear war due to the actions of Washington and noted that “…there can be no winners in a nuclear war and that it must not be unleashed.”
“But the way our American opponents are recklessly, provocatively, and in many respects absolutely carelessly moving up the escalation ladder, the way they are blinded by their absolutely absurd certainty about their ability to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia makes one doubt their mental faculties and their common sense,” the minister added.
Ryabkov went on to state that Washington is “playing with fire” and risked making “fatal mistakes” before adding that Moscow “will. be ready to take all measures and to use all means at our disposal” if the U.S. were to attempt to infringe on its sovereignty.
The more NATO has increased its support for Ukraine in recent months, the more verbal Russia has become about its rights as a sovereign country. However, Moscow has avoided acknowledging its role in invading Ukraine, a sovereign country, referring to the war it started only as a necessary “special military operation.”
Meanwhile, Washington has taken to highlighting the ineffectiveness of the Russian military in many ways in its attempt to quickly capture Ukrainian territory with a Pentagon spokesman saying, “I think we’ve certainly seen failures that the Russian military has not been able to execute on the battlefield and failures in their command-and-control.”
