Lavrov: European soldiers in Ukraine will become Russian targets

TT

Published 07.24

 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, photographed in Egypt in mid-December. Photo: Amr Nabil/AP/TT

If European soldiers are deployed in Ukraine, they will be seen as “legitimate targets” for Russia, claims the warring country’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“We have already said a hundred times that in such a case they would become a legitimate target for our armed forces,” Lavrov said in an interview with the state news agency Tass.

The high-profile interview was published just hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida to discuss a peace settlement for the Ukraine war and security guarantees.

In the interview, Lavrov claims that European politicians are driven by “ambitions” in their relationship with the Ukrainian government, and that this causes them to overlook both the Ukrainian population and their own. He specifically targets the so-called “Coalition of the Willing,” a group of countries that support Ukraine and of which Sweden is a member.