Russia's foreign minister said he does 'not want to believe' that fighting in Ukraine could escalate into nuclear war

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov he doesn't think there will be nuclear war over Ukraine.
• The remark on Thursday came amid high tensions over the West giving Ukraine military support.

Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that he does not think nuclear war is a likelihood in connection with the country's invasion of Ukraine.

In comments made to press on Thursday in Antalya, Turkey, he said: "I do not want to believe in it and do not believe it," as Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Lavrov had just concluded a meeting with the Ukraine's foreign ministry, Dmytro Kuleba, in which the sides failed to make any progress towards ending their conflict.

His comment came at a moment of high tension over the question of whether Russia could resort to nuclear weapons as part of its invasion of Ukraine.

He went on to blame countries supporting Ukraine for bringing up such a possibility, saying: "This discourse was thrown exclusively by western representatives, primarily NATO members."

This is a stark revision of recent history. On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin made comments seen as a thinly-veiled threat to western and NATO nations during a speech offering his rationale for the invasion.

They would face "consequences greater than any you have faced in history," if they became embroiled in the war, he said, while alluding to Russia's enormous nuclear arsenal.

Putin also announced on March 27 that he put his nuclear armory on "special alert" in reaction to western sanctions on Russia.

The gesture was interpreted by the UK's defense minister Ben Wallace as an attempt to distract from the invasion of Ukraine, which many observers believe is proving far more difficult than Russia expected.

Nonetheless, moves of this kind appear to have informed the responses of NATO and Western supporters of Ukraine, who have proved wary to make any moves that could be read as an escalation.

One recent example was the US rejecting a plan from the Polish government to provide fighter jets to Ukraine. Although many countries have sent equipment to aid Ukraine's war effort, the jets were deemed to be a step too close to active involvement in the war.

Russia has one of the world's largest nuclear armories. An estimate by the Federation of American Scientists puts the number of strategic nuclear weapons held by Russia at around 4,500, the BBC reported.