The West’s increasing involvement in Ukraine is creating the risk of a direct confrontation between nuclear powers, Russia’s defence minister has starkly warned.
Andrei Belousov made the barely-veiled threat on Wednesday at a meeting between the defence ministries of Russia and Belarus in Minsk.
Belousov said: ‘The growing involvement of Western countries in the conflict in Ukraine creates global risks.
‘The desire to inflict maximum damage on Russia could lead to a direct military clash between nuclear powers.’
Belousov, appointed to his post in May, said at the same meeting that Russia was now preparing for the possibility of using nuclear weapons if any state attacks its ally Belarus.
He said: ‘Changes in the military-political situation have necessitated the clarification of the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the field of nuclear deterrence. And its adaptation to new realities.
‘In particular, the possibility of using nuclear weapons in response to aggression against Belarus as a member of the Union State is envisaged.’
Belousov’s startling comments come as Russia hosts around two dozen world leaders for the BRICS summit, including UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who arrived this morning for his first visit to the country for more than two years that has drawn scorn from Ukraine.
The gathering is the largest diplomatic forum in Russia since launching its full-scale military offensive on Ukraine in 2022 and President Vladimir Putin wants to use it to demonstrate that attempts to isolate him on the world stage have failed.
Moscow sees the platform as an alternative to Western-led international organisations like the G7 – a position supported by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In bilateral talks on Tuesday, including with Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Putin hailed Moscow’s close ties and ‘strategic partnerships’ with its partners.
Xi, meanwhile, praised China’s ‘profound’ ties with Russia in what he called a ‘chaotic’ world.
Russia and China’s relations have ‘injected strong impetus into the development, revitalisation and modernisation of the two countries’, Xi said.
Putin said he saw relations between Beijing and China as a foundation of global ‘stability’.
‘Russian-Chinese cooperation in world affairs acts as one of the stabilising factors in the global arena. We intend to further increase coordination in all multilateral platforms to ensure global security and a just world order,’ he told Xi.
Kyiv has railed against Guterres’ trip, with its foreign ministry writing on X: ‘The UN Secretary General declined Ukraine’s invitation to the first Global Peace Summit in Switzerland. He did, however, accept the invitation to Kazan from war criminal Putin.’
Guterres’ spokesperson said the trip was part of the UN chief’s regular attendance at ‘organisations with large numbers of important member states,’ and said it offered a chance to ‘reaffirm his well known positions’ on the Ukraine conflict ‘and the conditions for just peace.’
The BRICS conference comes as Ukrainian officials admitted Russian forces have advanced over a key waterway in the eastern Ukrainian stronghold of Chasiv Yar, marking a setback for Kyiv’s embattled forces.
The town of Chasiv Yar, which had an estimated pre-war population of around 12,000 people, sits on a strategic hilltop and its capture would likely speed Russian advances deeper in the war-battered Donetsk region.
‘The enemy managed to break into our line of defence, but there is no critical failure and we are not about to lose Chasiv Yar. Fierce fighting continues now,’ a spokesman for Ukraine’s 24th brigade told state-run media.
The spokesman Ivan Petrychak said that while Russian troops had crossed the canal on the eastern edge of the city Ukrainian troops were containing the advance.
Russian forces have been pushing against outnumbered Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region, which the Kremlin claims is part of Russia.
If Moscow captures the town, it would threaten some of the largest population centres in the industrial region, like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
There have been sporadic reports that Russian forces have previously crossed the canal, which serves as a de facto front line, in Chasiv Yar, and Ukraine has claimed to have fought them back.
Russian drone and artillery attacks meanwhile killed five people, including a child, in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Sumy and Donetsk, officials said Tuesday.
Sumy lies across the border from Kursk in Russia, where Ukrainian troops launched a major offensive in August and have been holding swathes of territory.