NATO in ‘hybrid war’: Lavrov

Russia says more Western involvement will not significantly change course of conflict

Moscow accused NATO of being “involved in a hybrid war against Russia”, as Western countries pledged to provide more military aid to Kyiv.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the “hybrid war” involving NATO has lasted for a long time, and “the war is being refracted in its hot displays, in actions of the Kyiv regime”.

Moscow is taking necessary measures to prevent Ukraine from turning into an even sharper threat to Russia’s security, he said.

During a news conference on Jan 31 after talks with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry, he said Russia will prevent the Ukrainian authorities “from prevailing in its policy of discrimination and destruction of rights of all those Ukrainian citizens and former Ukrainian citizens who felt involved in Russian history, Russian culture and Russian traditions”.

Russia is watching this process, and the armed forces will take all necessary measures to prevent Western plans from coming to fruition, he said.

Lavrov made his remarks as two United States officials revealed the government is readying more than $2 billion worth of military aid for Ukraine that is expected to include longer-range rockets for the first time, as well as other weapons.

The aid is expected to be announced as soon as this week, the officials said. It is also expected to include support equipment for Patriot air defense systems, precision-guided munitions and Javelin anti-tank weapons, they were quoted by Reuters as saying.

One of the officials said a portion of the aid, expected to be $1.725 billion, would come from a fund known as the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative which allows President Joe Biden’s administration to get weapons from the industry rather than from US weapons stocks.

Those funds would go toward the purchase of a new weapon, the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb made by Boeing, which has a range of 150 kilometers.

The longer range of the GLSDB glide bomb could allow Ukraine to hit targets that have been out of reach and help it continue pressing its counterattacks by disrupting Russia further behind its lines.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Jan 30 NATO was “more and more becoming directly involved in the conflict”, but that the involvement will not significantly change the conflict’s course.

Separately, Ukraine announced it would hold a summit with the European Union in Kyiv this week, as it expressed hope that the conference would bring the nation closer to membership in the bloc.

In an address to the nation, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped a summit with the EU in Kyiv on Feb 3 would reflect a high “level of cooperation and progress” with the 27-member bloc.

However, a source from the European delegation to the summit said EU leaders will unlikely pledge to speed up the process of Ukraine’s accession to the bloc.

Zelensky had also urged allies to send jets, as had Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Melnyk, who said he hoped to see a “fighter jet coalition” featuring not only donated F-16s and German Eurofighter Typhoons but also Rafales from France and Gripen jets from Sweden.

On Jan 30, Biden told a reporter he would not send the aircraft for use in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. His decision followed Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying a day earlier that he would not send aircraft to Ukraine, over fears it would escalate the conflict.

Also on Jan 30, France’s President Emmanuel Macon said “by definition, nothing is excluded”. But he too said he will commit to nothing that may escalate the conflict and any jets France may send must not be used to “hit Russian soil” but “purely to aid the resistance effort”.

Poland is also understood to be mulling the request for fighter jets, in its case F-16s and MiG-29s, but Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also said he will do nothing to escalate the conflict and act “in complete coordination” with NATO.

The Netherlands has also said it is considering Kyiv’s request. The United Kingdom’s defense secretary, Ben

Wallace, said on Jan 30 all allies will likely reconsider the provision of jets many times.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the US, by its actions, has undermined the principles of implementing the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START.

Zakharova made the remarks on Feb 1 at Sputnik Radio in response to the US allegation that Russia violated the New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty in force between the two nuclear superpowers.

She said that Moscow remains committed to the treaty but does not see the same commitment from Washington.

“Do I need to remind, within the framework of the indivisibility of security, cooperation and everything written here, how the United States unilaterally withdrew from a huge number of agreements, how they were engaged in the so-called containment of Russia behind its back?” she asked.