Russia's Lavrov warns West against 'fight to victory with a nuclear power'

By Simon Lewis and Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday told the United Nations that it was senseless to ignore alternatives to Ukraine's peace proposals, warning the West of the danger of trying to "fight to victory with a nuclear power."

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Lavrov took aim at backers of Ukraine who support Kyiv's peace proposal.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Nine months later Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced a 10-point peace plan to bring a just end to the war on the basis of the founding U.N. Charter and international law. Moscow rejected the plan.

"I'm not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power, which is what Russia is," Lavrov said.

"Equally senseless, the Western backers of Kyiv swearing that there is no alternative to negotiations based on the infamous peace formula."

Invoking Western allies' plans in the 1940s to "destroy" the Soviet Union, he accused the West of trying to deal a "strategic defeat" to Russia in Ukraine.

"The current Anglo-Saxon strategists are not hiding their ideas. For now they do, it's true, hope to defeat Russia using the illegitimate neo-Nazi Kyiv regime, but they're already preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade," Lavrov said.

Russia is not increasing its nuclear arsenal and while it had suspended participation in the New START treaty with Washington, it would remain guided by the treaty until it expires in 2026, Lavrov said.

"We suspended our participation in it, but we did say that we will comply with the levels, and we will exchange some types of information with the Americans," he said.

MIDEAST TENSIONS

Lavrov also challenged the United States over its support for Israel as the conflict with Lebanon's Hezbollah escalates and the war with Palestinian militants Hamas drags on in Gaza.

In a news conference at the U.N., he said the killing of Hezbollah's leader on Friday was a "political assassination" and raised concerns that Israel may be seeking to draw Iran into a direct conflict.

"My perception is that there are those who are looking to provoke Iran, to subsequently provoke the United States, and then to unleash a full blown war in the entire region there," Lavrov said.

Lavrov credited Iran's leadership for "behaving extremely responsibly" by not reacting to those provocations.

"It's important to just stop the bloodshed and stop using terrorist methods for political score settling," Lavrov said.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Paul Simao and Chizu Nomiyama)