As Russia's war rages in Ukraine, tensions have mounted along NATO's eastern flank in recent weeks as Estonia said Moscow sent three fighter jets into its airspace and NATO warplanes shot down Russian drones over Poland.
"Any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response. 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," Lavrov told the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday.
The spate of airspace incursions linked to Russia has unnerved countries in eastern Europe where Russia is seen as the biggest threat since the end of the Cold War.
US President Donald Trump said this week that he endorsed the idea of shooting down Russian jets that violate NATO airspace, part of a rhetorical shift that saw him mock Russia's military performance in Ukraine and call it a paper tiger.
Lavrov brushed off Trump's most recent remarks during a press conference that followed his General Assembly speech, but issued a warning about any moves against aircraft inside Russia.
"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 said.
He told the UN General Assembly that Russia had never targeted EU or NATO countries with drones or missiles, and that it had no plans to do so in the future.
He said that only the "politically blind" would expect Ukraine to one day return to the borders it had before Russia invaded in February 2022, an indirect response to Trump's assertion that Kyiv could retake all its occupied land from Russia.
Lavrov also singled out German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, referring to what he said was "militaristic rhetoric" and said Moscow was alarmed by remarks by politicians in EU and NATO capitals of a looming World War Three as a "likely scenario".
Despite taking aim at NATO and the European Union, Lavrov made clear Moscow remained hopeful of "frank dialogue" with the United States under Trump despite the US president's recent shifting stance.
The US and Russia, he said, will hold a third round of talks in the coming months aimed at improving each other's embassy operations, which have been severely curtailed by a decade of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions and other curbs.
