MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, responding to a question about the potential delivery of long-range US missiles to Ukraine, warned the United States on Wednesday not to joke about Russia’s “red lines”.

Lavrov said the US was losing sight of the sense of mutual deterrence that had underpinned the balance of security between Moscow and Washington since the Cold War, and that this was dangerous.

He was commenting on a report that the US is close to an agreement to supply Ukraine with long-range JASSM cruise missiles that could reach deep inside Russia — for which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been lobbying.

“I won’t be surprised by anything — the Americans have already crossed the threshold they set for themselves. They are being egged on, and Zelenskiy of course sees this and takes advantage of it,” Lavrov told a Russian TV interviewer. “But they should understand — they are joking about our red lines here. They shouldn’t joke about our red lines.”

Deadly strike hits Ukraine city as Zelensky confirms reshuffle

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned the West since launching what he called his “special military operation” in Ukraine in 2022 not to try to thwart Russia, which has the world’s biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons. But Washington and its allies have increased military aid to Ukraine, including by providing tanks, advanced missiles and F-16 fighter jets.

That has prompted some Western politicians to suggest Putin’s nuclear rhetoric is a bluff and that the US and Nato should go all-out to help Ukraine win the war. Zelenskiy has said Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, launched on Aug 6, makes a mockery of Putin’s red lines.

‘New Energy’

Russia struck the city of Lviv in western Ukraine on Wednesday, killing seven people and damaging historical buildings in a rare attack hundreds of kilometres from the frontline.

The strike came as several Ukrainian ministers, including top diplomat Dmytro Kuleba, offered their resignations, part of a major reshuffle President Volodymyr Zelensky said would bring “new energy” to government. Russia has stepped up its aerial attacks on Ukraine since Kyiv launched an unprecedented cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk region last month.

“In total, seven people died in Lviv, including three children. The search and rescue operation is ongoing,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko wrote on Telegram. The missile attack also wounded 40 people, damaging schools and medical facilities as well as buildings in Lviv’s historic centre, according to the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general.

The western city near the Polish border is home to a Unesco world heritage site that covers its old town. It has been largely spared the intense strikes that have rocked cities further east. But at least seven “architectural objects of local importance were damaged” in Wednesday’s barrage, regional head Maksym Kozytsky said.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2024