Ukraine attacked Russia’s western Kursk region on August 6 and has carved out a slice of territory in the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War Two. President Vladimir Putin said there would be a worthy response from Russia to the attack.

Sergei Lavrov, who has served as Putin’s foreign minister for more than 20 years, said that the West was seeking to escalate the Ukraine war and was “asking for trouble” by considering Ukrainian requests to halt a ban on using foreign-supplied weapons in deep parts of Russia.

Putin’s Warnings in 2022

Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much larger war involving the world’s biggest nuclear powers, though he has said Russia does not want a conflict with the U.S.-led NATO alliance.

“We are now confirming once again that playing with fire – and they are like small children playing with matches – is a very dangerous thing for grown-up uncles and aunts who are entrusted with nuclear weapons in one or another Western country,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.

“Americans unequivocally associate conversations about the Third World War as something that, God forbid, if it happens, will affect Europe exclusively,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov added that Russia was “clarifying” its nuclear doctrine.

Russia’s 2020 nuclear doctrine says the president can use a nuclear weapon “when the very existence of the state is put under threat”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier this month that the assault on Russia’s Kursk region showed that Kremlin threats of retaliation or nuclear war were a bluff.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine, because of the restrictions imposed by allies, could not use the weapons at its disposal to hit some Russian military targets. He urged allies to be bolder in their decisions about how to help Kyiv in the war.