RIO DE JANEIRO — French President Emmanuel Macron told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to climb down from making nuclear threats after Russia lowered its threshold for launching a nuclear strike earlier in the day.
“Be reasonable,” and refrain from showing “an aggressive approach to the international community,” Macron urged Putin in comments made on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.
“Russia is becoming a force for destabilization,” he said.
Putin’s decision to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine came after outgoing United States President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deeper inside Russia. Ukraine has since used ATACMS missiles to strike a facility in Bryansk region.
The French president argued on Tuesday that the decision to let Ukraine fire missiles into Russia came in response to escalatory moves from Moscow, in particular the deployment of North Korean soldiers to fight against Ukrainian forces.
Russia has also intensified strikes on Ukraine in recent days, launching its largest aerial attack on the country for months, causing vast damage and killing at least five people.
The second day of the G20 summit in Brazil was overshadowed by increasing tensions over Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, with the conflict passing its 1,000th day.
Speaking to reporters in Rio de Janeiro, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow is “strongly in favor of doing everything not to allow nuclear war to happen,” but put the responsibility for any escalation squarely on the Americans.
“If long-range missiles are launched from Ukraine to Russian territory, it will mean that they will be controlled by American military experts. We will respond accordingly,” he said.
“The update of the nuclear doctrine doesn’t add anything that the West wouldn’t know, and does not add anything which would be ‘different,’ let me put it this way, from the American doctrinal documents on what to do with nuclear weapons.”
Lavrov attended the G20 instead of Putin due to the international arrest warrant that has been issued against the Russian leader.
He reiterated that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.
“We are convinced that the nuclear weapon is, first and foremost, a weapon to prevent any nuclear war.”
