Vladimir Putin’s top diplomat referred to the West as “Anglo Saxons” in a furious speech about Ukraine’s peace proposals.
Sergei Lavrov used the term, generally applied to those who lived in England from the 400s until the Norman conquest, to slam the entire West and Ukraine at the UN’s General Assembly on Saturday.
According to Reuters, he claimed: “The current Anglo-Saxon strategists are not hiding their ideas.”
Repeating Moscow’s baseless allegations that the Ukrainian government is run by neo-Nazis, he said: “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.”
He then started to repeat Putin’s nuclear warnings, saying: “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.”
Putin has been threatening to go nuclear repeatedly since invading Ukraine in February 2022, in a bid to stop the West from getting too involved in the conflict.
Ukraine’s allies are now considering allowing Kyiv to use long-range missiles from the West to target sites beyond Russia’s borders, so Moscow has upped the ante recently.
Putin claimed he had altered Russia’s nuclear doctrine so that the rules of use could apply even to attack from non-nuclear weapons.
The Russian foreign minister then criticised Kyiv’s 10 point peace plan to end the war based on founding UN Charter and international law.
Lavrov continued: “Equally senseless, the Western backers of Kyiv swearing that there is no alternative to negotiations based on the infamous peace formula.”
He claimed the West was trying to secure a “strategic defeat” to Russia in Ukraine.
Despite all of the nuclear warnings, Lavrov added that Russia is not increasing its nuclear arsenal for now.
Putin cannot attend international events like the UN’s General Assembly in New York in person.
There is an international arrest warrant out for him, issued by the International Criminal Court over charges related to the forceful abduction of Ukrainian children.
So while world leaders were together in New York, it seems Putin was focusing on celebrating the second anniversary of the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions.
He released a bizarre video message on Monday to mark the occasion, saying: “Truth is on our side! All set goals will be achieved!”