Russia’s foreign minister speaks to state media about war in Ukraine, US relations
By Greg Norman
President Vladimir Putin is being threatened with a “decapitation blow,” according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who also calls it a “threat to physically remove the head of the Russian state.”
In an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS on Tuesday, Lavrov reportedly made the remarks in response to an unconfirmed report from September that quoted an anonymous Pentagon official as saying that the United States was considering taking such action in the event that Russia ever launched a nuclear strike.
“Washington traveled the most distance. The Kremlin was threatened with a “decapitation blow” by some “unnamed officials” from the Pentagon, but in reality, the threat is to kill the head of the Russian state, “Lavrov declared.
“If such ideas are actually hatched by someone, this someone should think very carefully about the possible consequences of such plans,” he added.
Lavrov, speaking about the war in Ukraine, also told TASS, “It is no longer a secret to anyone that the strategic goal of the United States and its NATO allies is ‘victory over Russia on the battlefield’ as a mechanism for significantly weakening or even destroying our country.”
“For the sake of achieving this goal, our opponents are ready for a lot. The main beneficiary of the ‘hot conflict’ is the United States, which seeks to extract the maximum benefit from it, both in economic and military-strategic terms,” he added.
“At the same time, Washington is also solving an important geopolitical task — to break the traditional ties between Russia and Europe and to further subjugate the European satellites.”
