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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the West on Saturday that any aggression against Moscow would face a “decisive response,” warning against attempts to down aircraft in Russian airspace and accusing Germany of militaristic rhetoric.
“Any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response. There should be no doubt about this among those in NATO and the EU who … are telling their voters that war with Russia is inevitable,” he told the United Nations General Assembly.
The spate of airspace incursions linked to Russia has unnerved countries in eastern Europe, where Russia is seen as the biggest threat since the end of the Cold War. Hopes have dimmed of any imminent end to Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
United States President Donald Trump said this week that he endorsed the idea of shooting down Russian jets that violate NATO airspace, part of a rhetorical shift that saw him mock Russia’s military performance in Ukraine and call it a paper tiger.
Lavrov brushed off Trump’s most recent remarks during a press conference that followed his General Assembly speech, but issued a warning about any moves against aircraft inside Russia.
“If there are attempts to down any flying object, any object … in our airspace, then I think people will very much regret undertaking such an egregious violation of our territorial integrity and sovereignty,” he said.
He said that only the “politically blind” would expect Ukraine to one day return to the borders it had before Russia invaded in February 2022, an indirect response to Trump’s assertion that Kyiv could retake all its occupied land from Russia.
Lavrov also singled out German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, referring to what he said was “militaristic rhetoric” and said Moscow was alarmed by remarks by politicians in EU and NATO capitals of a looming World War Three as a “likely scenario”.
Despite taking aim at NATO and the European Union, Lavrov made clear Moscow remained hopeful of “frank dialogue” with the United States under Trump despite the US president’s recent shifting stance.
The US and Russia, he said, will hold a third round of talks in the coming months aimed at improving each other’s embassy operations, which have been severely curtailed by a decade of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions and other curbs.
Lavrov met US secretary of state Marco Rubio on Wednesday on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.
Lavrov said he did not see economic relations between Russia and India as under threat, as Trump has placed tariffs on products from India, calling on it and China to stop purchasing Russian oil.
