Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that Moscow will not start a war in Ukraine, but warned that it wouldn’t allow the West to trample on its security interests, amid fears it is planning to invade its neighbour.

U.S. President Joe Biden warned Ukraine’s leader a day earlier that there is a “distinct possibility” that Russia could take military action against the former Soviet state in February.

“There won’t be a war as far as it depends on the Russian Federation — we don’t want a war,” Lavrov said in a live interview with Russian radio stations. “But we won’t let our