Russia’s top diplomat on Monday said the invasion of Ukraine not represents a hybrid conflict but quite a “real” war between Russia and the West – a troubling escalation in rhetoric that aligns with growing concerns that Moscow is preparing to lash out at latest NATO support for Kyiv.
“Once we discuss what is occurring in Ukraine, we’re talking in regards to the indisputable fact that this isn’t any longer a hybrid war but an actual one, which the West has been preparing for a very long time against Russia,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a visit to South Africa, historically an ally of the Soviet Union and a up to date Russian economic partner.
The West is “attempting to destroy every part Russian, from language to culture, which has been in Ukraine for hundreds of years, and forbidding people to talk their native languages,” Lavrov said, in line with a translation, repeating well-trod Kremlin talking points attempting to border Russia’s unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine as an act of self-defense.
And it follows other troubling assertions, including from Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin who recently repeated unspecified threats of nuclear escalation with the West. Analysts consider the moves represent Russia’s tacit acknowledgement of its struggling position in Ukraine and the damaging potential of latest weapons shipments NATO countries are considering, particularly German-made Leopard 2 tanks.
The rhetoric is “as a part of an ongoing information operation geared toward deterring the Western provision of further military aid to Ukraine,” the independent Institute for the Study of War concluded in its latest evaluation note. Of the nuclear threats, it adds that it “continues to evaluate that Russia is most unlikely to make use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and extraordinarily unlikely to make use of them against the West.”
Lavrov’s comments got here hours after indications that several NATO countries, including Poland, appeared to have cleared diplomatic hurdles and would supply Leopard tanks to Ukraine – a development U.S. officials would represent a game-changing boon for Ukraine to construct on its latest offensives against the numerically superior Russian army.
Russian state news published an evaluation early Monday indicating that the arrival of the Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine would upset a balance between Russia and NATO that’s already “on the brink.” It cited a military analyst who said NATO is entering “essentially the most acute phase” of the conflict and is engaging in “a really dangerous balancing act” in considering delivering the tanks.
Germany under the leadership of newly installed Chancellor Olaf Scholz has to this point balked at supplying the tanks itself, certainly one of several moves that has drawn widespread condemnation of Berlin for not taking a tough line against Russian aggression. Poland, nevertheless, has said it will supply several of its Leopard tanks provided Germany didn’t object. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Sunday said that her country “wouldn’t stand in the best way” of Poland providing the tanks. The Finnish government has likewise indicated it will contribute to helping operate and to maintaining the tanks and maybe even supply its own, depending on Germany’s decision.
To this point, the U.S. government has not indicated it’s willing to supply Leopards or every other tanks to Ukraine, having already escalated its support earlier this month with latest troop transport vehicles armed with weapons that make them veritable “tank-killers.”
That call has prompted backlash from Biden’s political appointments who point to the Leopard’s as a key component of Ukraine’s plan for retaking territory.
“We cannot slow-walk the weapons in,” Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “I’ve been a proponent of let’s give them what they need. Once they do, they win. The [Leopard 2] tanks are vitally necessary.”
