Russia threatens "countermeasures" if US sends cluster bombs to Ukraine
Moscow, Russia – Russia on Wednesday said it would respond if Ukraine used cluster bombs against its troops, after Washington controversially pledged the weapons to Kyiv.
"The potential use of this type of munitions changes the situation, and of course it would force Russia to take countermeasures," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that the war in Ukraine will not end until the West stops trying to defeat Moscow.
In an interview with the Indonesian newspaper Kompas ahead of meetings with his Southeast Asian counterparts in Jakarta this week, Lavrov lambasted the US and its allies for supporting Ukraine.
"It will continue until the West abandons its plans to maintain dominance and its obsession with inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia through the hands of its puppet, Kyiv," he said of the Ukraine conflict.
"There has been no sign of a change in their position and we are seeing how America and its accomplices are continuously pumping weapons into Ukraine and pushing (Zelensky) to continue fighting."
Zelensky defends use of cluster munitions
Lavrov is due to attend the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum foreign ministers' meetings on Friday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The pair last met briefly in March at a G20 meeting in India.
NATO leaders, meanwhile, are holding a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where they vowed that "Ukraine's future is in NATO" and shortened the eventual process Kyiv would have to go through to enter the alliance, but did not offer a timeline on Ukraine's prospective membership.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is also present at the summit, defended his request for cluster bombs, insisting that they would only be used "against military targets, only against the occupied territory of Ukraine."
Cover photo: REUTERS