Russia has warned that the war launched by the US and Israel against Iran could result in the very outcome they were seeking to prevent, by spurring both Iran and its Arab neighbours to seek to acquire nuclear weapons.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the logical consequence would be that “forces will emerge in Iran … in favour of doing exactly what the Americans want to avoid acquiring a nuclear bomb. Because the US doesn’t attack those who have nuclear bombs”.

Lavrov told a press conference that Arab countries could also join the race to build a bomb. The risk was now growing that “the nuclear proliferation problem will begin to spiral out of control”, he warned.

He said Moscow had still seen no evidence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. Israel is widely seen as the region’s only nuclear-armed state, which it neither confirms nor denies.