Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov issues ominous warning as he returns to Moscow

America will face a 'head-on collision with a nuclear power' if it allows Ukraine to fire US long-range missiles into Russia, the country's outgoing ambassador has warned.

US-Russian relations, already at 'arguably the lowest point in their history' will plunge into an 'uncontrolled nosedive' if Ukraine gets the green light, Anatoly Antanov predicted.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky met President Biden last month and told him that firing US ATACMS deep into Russian territory could break the deadlock in the two-and-a-half year war.

Russia's President Putin said it would finally constitute direct NATO involvement, and his ambassador spelt out the message as he headed back to Moscow.

'America will not be able to sit it out across the ocean,' Antanov said. 'A global nuclear catastrophe would affect everyone.'

Biden pledged to deliver the billions of dollars worth of defense assistance agreed to by Congress earlier this year before he leaves office in January.

US missiles were first used against Russian forces in Ukraine in early April but the US has still to announce a decision on whether it will allow Kyiv to fire them over the border.

But the war is starting to change shape with Russia seizing a series of Ukrainian villages in recent weeks and Ukraine taking the war to Russia itself with a cross-border raid that seized 500 square miles of Russian territory.

'Project Ukraine is dragging American politicians only further into an abyss, from which it is increasingly difficult to get out,' Antonov told Newsweek as he prepared to head back after seven years as Russia's top man in the US.

'As we see, the administration can only respond to the victories of Russian troops in Donbas and the failure of the provocation by the Ukrainian armed forces in the Kursk region by using the same hackneyed theses about 'support as long as we can'.

'There are zero signals to clients about the need to think over their position and sit down at the negotiating table.

'Neither are there any hints about stopping the senseless flow of weapons at the expense of the local taxpayer.

'Washington is continuing a dangerous discussion about the possibility of giving Ukrainians a permission to strike deep into Russian territory with Western long-range missiles.'

He claimed that US strategists were already blithely modelling the impact that an outbreak of nuclear warfare would have on Russian and Ukraine.

'At the same time, they mistakenly believe that this catastrophe will only affect Europe and Russia,' he added.

'This is extremely short-sighted.

'Now, amid talks of long-range missiles, Vladimir Putin has sent a clear warning to the United States and its allies.

'He reminded them of the direct involvement of American so-called 'technical specialists' in planning and carrying out strikes against Russia.'

Antonov accused the US of being behind a series of popular revolutions that have forced Moscow-friendly governments from office in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Russia seized the province of Crimea in response to Ukraine's Orange Revolution of 2014 and poured across the country's borders in February 2022 as Ukraine pressed for Nato membership.

Antonov claimed that Russia's warnings had been met with 'silence and smirks' in the West.

'In America, there is an unwillingness to recognize that over the past few decades, the West, led by Washington, has been rejecting Moscow's outstretched hand of cooperation again and again,' he said. 

'Year after year, it has been militarily exploiting European territory, conducting waves of NATO expansion to the East.

'It has organized color revolutions and anti-constitutional coups, increasingly encircling Russia in a hostile ring, and as the decisive battering ram it chose Ukraine.

'All this only confirms that the political elites have set themselves the task not just to defeat Russia but to preserve the old world order, based on the rules favorable to NATO countries' he added.

'We want to change this obviously outdated state of affairs. We want our security interests to be taken into account.'

Russia and Ukraine appear locked in a grinding stalemate as the conflict heads towards its fourth year with both countries touting their own irreconcilable peace plans.

Kyiv has demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Crimea, other occupied areas, and from the eastern Donbass region which has been controlled by Russian separatists since 2014.

Putin has demanded Ukraine surrender the Crimea and the Donbas, and abandon its bid for Nato membership as a prerequisite to peace talks.

Kamala Harris described the Russian plans as 'proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable', when she met Zelensky last month.

Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to end the war in '24 hours' and his VP pick JD Vance has said the plan could involve the existing front line constituting a new border with a 'demilitarized zone' separating the two countries.

It was reported this week by former Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that Trump has spoken to Putin seven times since losing office, and the GOP thinking appears closer to Moscow's preferred outline than Kyiv's.

But Antonov insisted that Russia had no particular interest in the outcome of the election.

'We stay clear-eyed and understand that in the current circumstances, there is little chance for people who may assume power in the United States not to ultimately find themselves under the dense influence of the 'deep state' and corporate structures that are Russophobic towards Russia,' he claimed.

'The debris in Russia-US relations is so huge that it is extremely difficult to clear it up even with very serious political will.

'Blind support for the Kiev regime and its terrorism on Russian territory puts an end to even an attempt to approach the discussion of normalization of relations.'

But he voiced anger at attempts to silence pro-Russian voices in the US media which has seen sanctions imposed on outlets like the Moscow-financed RT America.

'Any voices of reason in Washington today are silenced or written off as 'Kremlin propaganda', he claimed.

'The recent unjustified sanctions against Russian journalists are in this vein, as well as provocative attacks by local intelligence services against Dmitry Simes, Scott Ritter and compatriots living in America.

'The average American reader, who sees and hears on a daily basis a stream of anti-Russian reports and articles from the media and notes Russophobic slogans coming from government officials and legislators, would hardly be surprised by an unsatisfactory assessment of bilateral ties between Russia and the US.

'Relations between Moscow and Washington are going through an extremely turbulent period, arguably touching the lowest point in their history.

'Trust between our countries has been completely lost. With rare exceptions, almost all areas of interaction have been 'frozen.'

What he described as a 'brutal cleansing of the information space in America' has left the field clear for 'poisonous commentaries about the harm of any conversation with 'the Russians'.

They discuss 'creating hostilities between the Slavs, encouraging the killing of people, and intensifying military escalation,' he claimed.

And democratic politicians performatively echo the sentiments they think the public want to hear.

'These people are not interested in the fate of Europeans and Kiev,' he claimed.

'They are only interested in the digits in public opinion polls, which supposedly can be adjusted in their favor if they demonstrate 'determination' and 'leadership'. This is pure recklessness.'

 The White House has attempted to downplay the impact its long-range missiles could have if deployed on Russian territory.

Last month State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller insisted there was no 'one magic capability that would change the face of the conflict'.

'When we approve any new weapon system or any new tactic, we look at how it's going to affect the entire battlefield and Ukraine's entire strategy. And that's what we'll continue to do,' he said.

But Antonov insisted that America's green light was Russia's red line as he compared US policymakers to 'a diver frozen before the decisive jump into the abyss'.

'The objective maximum task at this stage is to prevent the ties between two great powers and permanent members of the Security Council from finally plunging into an uncontrolled nosedive,' he insisted.

'Russia, as a responsible state, is not interested in such an extremely dangerous development of the situation.

'An insatiable desire to achieve strategic victory on the battlefield over Russia is simply impossible.'