Russian Foreign Minister says war in Ukraine will go 'to the end'

MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday (3) that he believes some foreign leaders are preparing for a war against Russia and that Moscow will continue its military operation in Ukraine until "the end".

Lavrov also said that Russia is not considering a nuclear war.

Offering no evidence to support his claims in an interview on state television a week after the Russians invaded Ukraine, he also accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an ethnic Jew, of presiding over "a society where Nazism is flourishing."

He said he had no doubt that a solution to the crisis in Ukraine would be found, and a new round of negotiations was about to begin between Ukrainian and Russian authorities.

But he said that Russia's dialogue with the West must be based on mutual respect, accused NATO of trying to maintain supremacy, and said that while Russia has a lot of goodwill, it cannot let anyone harm its interests.

Moscow would not allow Ukraine to maintain infrastructure that threatened Russia, he said.

Moscow also could not tolerate what he said was a military threat from Ukraine, he said, adding that he was convinced Russia was right about Ukraine.

"The idea of ​​nuclear energy is constantly swirling in the heads of Western politicians, but not in the heads of Russians," he said. "I assure you that we will not allow any kind of provocation to throw us off balance."

Russia does not feel politically isolated, and the question of how Ukraine lives should be decided by its people, he said.

Ukrainian authorities accused Russian forces of targeting civilian areas, but Lavrov said Russian troops had received strict orders to use high-precision weapons to destroy military infrastructure.

Without offering any evidence, Lavrov said that Russia had information that the United States was concerned about the prospect of losing control over what he described as chemical and biological laboratories in Ukraine, and accused the United Kingdom of building military bases there.

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