MOSCOW. Aug 27 (Interfax) - Kiev's demands that it be allowed to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike Moscow and St. Petersburg are blackmail, and the West is "asking for trouble," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"This is blackmail, and this is an attempt to pretend that the West wants to avoid an excessive escalation. But this is actually just a ruse. The West doesn't want to avoid an escalation. In plain words, the West is asking for trouble," Lavrov told journalists on Tuesday while commenting on Ukraine's corresponding request for the West.
"The Americans are strongly associating speculation on a third world war with something that could affect exclusively Europe, if this were to happen," Lavrov said.
"This is a very revealing aspect reflecting the mentality of American planners and geostrategists, who are sure they would sit it out," he said.
"It's important to understand in this situation that we have our own doctrine, including a doctrine for nuclear weapons use, which, by the way, is being updated right now," he said.
"This is just a Freudian slip on their part that a third world war is bad because they don't want Europe to suffer," Lavrov said.
"This is just the mentality of an American master sitting across the ocean, confident of his security and confident that not only Ukrainians but also Europeans would do the dirty work and die for him," he said.
"We've heard those speculations for a long time that the use of not only the Storm Shadow but also American long-range missiles be allowed," he said.
"We reiterate that playing with fire - and they're playing with matches like little kids - is a very dangerous thing for grown-up boys and girls who have nuclear weapons entrusted to them in this Western country or another," Lavrov said.
Asked whether Russia could take part in the next peace summit on settling the situation in Ukraine if it were held in a country of the Global South, Lavrov replied, "Next means continuing some initiative."
"There's only one initiative there - it started as the Copenhagen format, then it transformed into the Buergenstock conference. But the essence of all those processes is the so-called peace formula proposed by Zelensky, which is a non-starter and has absolutely no prospects," he said.
"Speaking of anything along the lines of measures promoting this formula as a solution having no alternatives, of course, only some dreamers in Ukraine, in Kiev, or in the West can see it as something that Russia would bite at, if you excuse my language," he said.
"I am talking precisely about a game. They want to put us in a situation where we would bite at something. Something that suits Zelensky. As the president [Russian President Vladimir Putin] has said repeatedly, we can talk of negotiations where no one gives any ultimatums to anyone," Lavrov said.
"The West is discouraging Ukraine from normal and appropriate negotiations based on commonly accepted principles and is doing all it can for Ukraine to continue the escalation in the hope that we will finally break down and do something that would enable the West, as they say, to flip the chessboard over. This isn't going to happen, we'll achieve our goals," he said.