Russian FM Lavrov says time for US to remove nuclear weapons from Europe

The West must not build military facilities in any countries of the former Soviet Union, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

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Lavrov, quoted by Russian news agencies RIA and TASS, also said Moscow found it unacceptable that some European countries hosted US nuclear weapons and was taking measures to prevent Ukraine from acquiring similar weapons.

He also told a Geneva disarmament meeting on Tuesday that Kyiv has been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, calling this a real danger that it needed to prevent.

“Ukraine still has Soviet technologies and the means of delivery of such weapons,” Sergei Lavov told the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament in a pre-recorded address. “We cannot fail to respond to this real danger,” he said.

At the same meeting, Ukraine’s foreign minister accused Russia of war crimes through its shelling of his country and called for a special meeting to address Russian aggression and weapons of mass destruction.

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