According to Tass, a Russian state news agency, Lavrov, speaking at the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday, warned Washington, D.C. as well as London to prepare for a "suicide venture" pointing out the "pointlessness and danger of the very idea to fight to victory with a nuclear power like Russia."

Three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West of using Ukraine — which Russia invaded in February 2022 — as a tool to try “to defeat" Moscow strategically, and “preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade.”