Nuclear war? Foreign Minister Lavrov of Russia says that he believes that

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that he did not believe the conflict in Ukraine would escalate into a nuclear war, but warned the United States and Europe that Moscow did not want to become dependent on the West again.

The Russian economy is facing the most serious crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, after the West imposed heavy sanctions on almost the entire Russian financial and business system following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Asked by a Kremlin correspondent for the Russian newspaper Kommersant whether he believed a nuclear war could break out, Lavrov said in Turkey: “I don’t want to believe it and I don’t believe it”.

Lavrov, President Vladimir Putin’s foreign minister since 2004, said the nuclear issue had been thrown into the discussions only by the West, which he said kept returning to nuclear war like Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis.

“Of course we are concerned that the West, like Freud, will keep coming back and coming back to this topic.”, Lavrov said after talks in Antalya, Turkey, with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.

Lavrov said that talks about a possible Russian attack on the former Soviet Baltic states – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, now all members of the European Union and NATO – “they seem to be old hoaxes”.

Russia and the United States have the largest nuclear arsenals after the Cold War, which divided the world for much of the 20th century, pitting the West against the Soviet Union and its allies.

On February 27, Putin ordered that Russia’s nuclear forces be placed on high alert, citing Western sanctions and aggressive comments from the main members of the NATO military alliance. Russian officials later mentioned British comments about a possible confrontation between NATO and Russia.

Now that the West has imposed crippling sanctions on Russia, Lavrov has said that Russia is turning away from the West and will face the economic consequences.

“We will come out of this crisis with a revitalized psychology and conscience: We will have no illusions that the West can be a reliable partnerLavrov said. “We will do everything possible to ensure that we never again depend on the West in those areas of our lives that have important meaning for our people.”

Asked about the energy sanctions imposed by the United States, Lavrov said that Russia will not try to convince any buyer to buy its energy.

In a clear reference to China, the world’s second largest economy, Lavrov said Russia had markets for its oil and gas.