This discussion, in all forums everywhere, is dominated by people who fail to understand that ambiguity and plausible deniability is a cornerstone of high-stakes negotiations.
Lavrov won't literally say "if the USA sends one more weapons shipment to Ukraine, we will drop a nuke on every Ukranian troop concentration we can find", because then they would look weak when it turns out they won't do it after all.
This is why all Russia's nuclear threats are veiled and implied. But make no mistake, they are there, and the message one can read between the lines is put there intentionally. It might be an empty threat or it isn't, but a threat it certainly is.
There are certainly concrete and non-ambiguous threats made behind the scenes, making explicit what actions each party is willing to commit to, but those don't end up in the media.
