Lavrov hopes NATO "wise enough" to stop third world war

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that he hopes NATO will be wise enough to prevent a large-scale war. However, the risk of unintended incidents has swelled without normal dialogue with Russia, he stressed.

"I believe everyone will be wise enough to prevent that. However, we are certainly very much concerned about the total absence of any professional dialogue between the Russian military and NATO," he said in an interview with RT France, Paris Match and Le Figaro, when asked whether NATO drills in Europe pose a threat of a third world war.

The minister recalled that members of the NATO-Russia Council had met three times over the past two years without any results. According to Russia’s top diplomat, NATO’s representatives were only prepared to discuss Ukraine.

"I am trying to be within the bounds of decency," Lavrov stressed. He went on to say that this just means one thing, "attempts were made to use the NATO-Russia Council as another tool to blame all mortal sins on us, and another way of satisfying the whims of our Ukrainian neighbors who dream of sanctions being endlessly perpetuated and want nothing more than Russia to always be subject to intense criticism," the diplomat specified.
High risks

Lavrov noted that almost all forms of cooperation between Russia and NATO had been frozen, and mere telephone contacts between Chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Curtis Scaparrotti were not enough to eliminate the growing risks of unintended incidents.

"This is not what is required in the current situation when the risk of some unintended incidents significantly increases. A Spanish fighter recently accidentally fired an air-to-air missile in Estonia," he said. "Thank God, it didn’t kill anyone."

"What if it fell on our soil rather than in Estonia?" the minister asked." After all, it was very close."