Sergey Lavrov. Photo: Natalia Gubernatorova
In an interview with RT on the sidelines of SPIEF 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia will provide a military-technical response if it sees F-16s flying over Ukraine and posing a threat.< /p> < p>Lavrov said Russian representatives had made a “serious demarche” to the “nuclear five” of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council over the possibility of F-16s carrying nuclear weapons amid talk of moving those fighters to Ukraine.
< p>According to the Russian minister, the Americans tried to make excuses that the United States would not transfer aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons to Ukraine.
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To this, Lavrov said, Russian experts replied that Russian systems would not be able to distinguish between an aircraft, which does not carry nuclear weapons, and an aircraft that is equipped with them.
“If we see that these aircraft flew over Ukraine and pose a threat to us, of course there will be a military-technical response,” Lavrov warned.