Russia’s Lavrov slams US, NATO for ‘directly participating’ in Ukraine warRussian FM says West playing central role in war due to armaments supply, personnel training; claims Moscow’s strikes on infrastructure aimed at disrupting weapons shipmentsMOSCOW — Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday accused the West of becoming directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine by supplying it with weapons and training its soldiers.You are training their military on your territory, on the territories of Britain, Germany, Italy, and other countries.”He said that the barrage of Russian missile strikes was intended to “knock out energy facilities that allow you to keep pumping deadly weapons into Ukraine in order to kill the Russians.”“The infrastructure that is targeted by those attacks is used to ensure the combat potential of the Ukrainian armed forces and the nationalist battalions,” Lavrov said.Asked if a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden is possible, Lavrov responded that “we don’t shun contacts” but added that “we haven’t yet heard any serious ideas yet.”Lavrov said that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has raised the issue of US citizens imprisoned in Russia in a phone call, but noted that Putin and Biden agreed to set up a separate channel of communication between special services to discuss the issue when they met in Geneva in June 2021.Commenting on Russia’s decision to postpone a round of nuclear arms control talks with the United States that was scheduled for this week, Lavrov argued that “it’s impossible to discuss strategic stability nowadays while ignoring everything that is happening in Ukraine.”“The goal has been announced to defeat Russia on the battlefield or even destroy Russia,” he said.“How can the goal of defeating Russia not bear significance for strategic stability, considering that they want to destroy a key strategic stability actor?”During the online news conference that lasted for 2½ hours, Lavrov ranted against the US and its NATO allies, accusing them of trampling on international law while trying to isolate and destroy Russia."