Russia has warned Britain and Nato they will "regret it" if they attempt to shoot down Moscow's jets in its airspace.
Vladimir Putin's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took to the UN on Saturday to rage at the West - promising a "decisive response" to any attacks in Russia's skies.
That came just days after Moscow sent its fighter jets over Estonia and Nato planes were forced to shoot down Russian drones over Poland.
"Any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response," Mr Lavrov spat - after denying Russia was behind the jets and drones.
'Any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response,' Sergei Lavrov told the UN
|REUTERS
"There should be no doubt about this among those in Nato and the EU who... are telling their voters that war with Russia is inevitable.
"If there are attempts to down any flying object, any object... in our airspace, then I think people will very much regret undertaking such an egregious violation of our territorial integrity and sovereignty," he raged.
Then, the Foreign Minister, 75, turned his fire on Germany - accusing its Chancellor Friedrich Merz of "militaristic rhetoric".
Elsewhere at the UN, Belarus's Lavrov counterpart Maxim Ryzhenkov rattled off a list of war threats - and revealed that hypersonic "Oreshnik" ballistic missiles were being moved to his country.
RUSSIA'S WAR THREATS - READ MORE:
PICTURED: Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin. Belarus has revealed that hypersonic ballistic missiles are being moved to the country
|REUTERS
"The Doomsday Clock shows less than one and a half minutes to midnight, symbolising the moment of nuclear apocalypse.
"This is the closest the clock has ever been to midnight," Mr Ryzhenkov said.
In an apparent bid to move the minute hand away from midnight, Belarus has deployed the nuclear-capable Oreshniks near its capital Minsk.
PICTURED: A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile launches at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome
|RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
Nato members, mapped: Who makes up the alliance? | GB NEWSA secret base is said to be being built near Pavlovka, a small village south of Minsk - and just miles from the border between Belarus and Nato member Lithuania.
Belarus also already boasts Russian Iskander-M short-range nuclear missiles on its own territory.
Russia itself recently a series of these close to the Polish border in the Kaliningrad exclave.
The country's Foreign Minister claimed it had been forced to lay down the weaponry to guarantee its security.
He also pointed to Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia's withdrawal from an international landmine treaty as an apparent example of escalation.
"They're even laying mines on our borders," he raged.