Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the United States on Tuesday against ordering a “decapitation strike” on President Vladimir Putin.
Lavrov’s comments refer to an anonymous U.S. military official telling Newsweek back in September that a special operation “to kill Putin in the heart of the Kremlin” had been “front and center” among the options being considered by the U.S. in response to Putin’s escalating nuclear rhetoric.
“Some ‘unnamed officials’ from the Pentagon actually threatened to deliver a ‘decapitation strike’ against the Kremlin,” Lavrov told Russia’s TASS news agency in an interview.
Describing the plans as “essentially a threat to physically remove the Russian head of state,” Lavrov warned of “consequences” should any such attack ever be carried out.
The Russian embassy in Washington slammed the so-called decapitation option as “reckless” and “delusional” at the time.
Lavrov on Tuesday also accused the United States and its NATO allies of seeking to defeat Russia on the battlefield in order to weaken or destroy the country. He also blamed the Biden administration for preventing the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Russia.