Putin's crony Lavrov repeats threat to use nuclear weapons to defend annexed Ukrainian territories

Putin‘s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeated threats that Russia would be prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend annexed Ukrainian territories.

Russia’s top diplomat was addressing the UN General Assembly and the world’s media in New York yesterday, amid condemnation of referendums being held in four eastern Ukrainian regions aimed at annexing territory it has taken by force. 

Kyiv said residents were being coerced into voting and were not allowed to leave the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions during the four-day vote, which Western nations dismissed as a sham designed to justify an escalation of the seven-month old war.

‘Following those referendums, Russia of course will respect the expression of the will of those people who for many long years have been suffering from the abuses of the neo-Nazi regime,’ Mr Lavrov said at a news conference after he addressed the assembly.

Asked if Russia would have grounds for using nuclear weapons to defend annexed regions…