"If we see that these planes fly over Ukraine and pose a threat to us, of course there will also be a military-technical response," Lavrov said in an interview with the RT television channel.

According to the Russian diplomat, the F-16 aircraft can be equipped to carry nuclear weapons. In this regard, Moscow had submitted "a very serious demarche" within the framework of the "nuclear five" panel of the UN Security Council, Lavrov said.

On this occasion, the foreign minister denounced the constant West's pumping of weapons, ammunition, and vehicles to Kiev to attack Russian territory.

Lavrov said that with the Ukrainian crisis, the West seeks to maintain its position of hegemony. It triggered the current conflict at the hands of Ukraine to eliminate competitors it identifies in Russia and China, the diplomat said.

The minister added that Western countries keep saying that Ukraine stands for democracy and the values of Western civilization, but this "is exactly the same as claiming Nazism as a mode of existence."

The Russian diplomat said that the West has failed in its attempt to maintain its hegemonic position as well as in its efforts to draw more and more countries into its condemnation of Russia through countless sanctions.