Russia’s foreign minister has accused Nato of fighting a proxy war by supplying military aid to Ukraine, as defence ministers gathered in Germany for US-hosted talks on supporting Ukraine through what one US general called a “very critical” few weeks.
Sergei Lavrov told Russian state media: “Nato, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.”
He also warned that the risks of nuclear conflict were now “considerable” – a claim Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said showed Moscow had lost its “last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine”.
When asked about the importance of avoiding a third world war, Lavrov said: “I would not want to elevate those risks artificially. Many would like that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it.”
Western officials have become concerned by the increasing emphasis Moscow puts on its nuclear arsenal as its conventional forces have faltered in Ukraine, hampered by fierce resistance and its own logistical and technological problems.
The US talks, hosted in Germany by US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, are expected to see more than 40 countries and the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, gather at Ramstein airbase south-west of Frankfurt. General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said a key goal of the talks was to coordinate mounting security assistance to Kyiv that included heavy weaponry, such as howitzers, as well armed drones and ammunition.
“The next several weeks will be very, very critical,” Milley said. “They need continued support in order to be successful on the battlefield. And that’s really the purpose of this conference.”
Austin, speaking after his trip to Ukraine, said: “They [Ukraine] can win if they have the right equipment, the right support.”
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, assess that Russia will now rely heavily on artillery strikes, trying to pound Ukrainian positions as Moscow moves in ground forces from multiple directions to try to envelop and wipe out a significant chunk of Ukraine’s military.
But the US also estimates many Russian units are depleted, with some operating with personnel losses as high as 30% – a level considered by the US military to be too high to keep fighting, officials say.
Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, told parliament on Monday about 15,000 Russian troops had been killed since the start of the invasion on 24 February; 2,000 Russian armoured vehicles had been destroyed or captured, including 530 tanks; and more than 60 Russian helicopters and fighter jets had been lost.
Ukraine’s foreign minister on Monday urged the UN secretary general, António Guterres, to press Russia for an evacuation of the besieged port of Mariupol, and criticised the decision by Guterres to visit Moscow first on Tuesday, before travelling to Kyiv.
“Many other foreign officials were trapped visiting Moscow and played around just to show the supremacy of Russian diplomacy and how great they are and how they dictate the world how to behave,” Kuleba said.
Guterres “should focus primarily on one issue: evacuation of Mariupol”, Kuleba said, referring to the southern port city where an estimated 100,000 people are trapped while Ukrainian fighters holed up in a steelworks resist Russian forces. “This is really something that the UN is capable to do. And if he [Guterres] demonstrates political will, character and integrity, I hope that will allow us to make one step forward.”
In other developments:
The Ukrainian defence ministry said the shelling of a government building in Moldova’s Russian-occupied region of Transnistria was a “planned provocation” by Russia. “Obviously, this case is one of a number of provocative measures organised by the FSB [the Russian security service] to instil panic and anti-Ukrainian sentiment.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, sounded a sombre tone late on Monday about the prospects for peace: “It is obvious that every day – and especially today, when the third month of our resistance has begun – that everyone in Ukraine is concerned with peace, about when it will all be over. There is no simple answer to that at this time.”
Russian forces continued to bomb and shell the vast Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on Monday, where fighters and civilians are hunkered down in underground shelters, Ukrainian presidential aide Oleksiy Arestovych said.