Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that sending Western weapons to Kyiv would allow Russian forces to maintain a presence in the country to withdraw Ukrainian troops from the border zone.
“If at the moment we are trying to withdraw the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to a distance that does not pose a threat to our territories, then the greater the range of weapons that (will be) directed at the Kyiv regime, the greater the obligation will be to withdraw Ukrainian soldiers from our borders,” Lavrov told RIA Novosti and the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Thursday. The head of Russian diplomacy added that the West is sinking into a quagmire “with every step it takes in Ukraine.”
“It will snowball,” Lavrov said, referring to the implications – from Moscow’s point of view – of foreign weapons being sent to Kyiv.
Lavrov also said that Russia was at the center of a “geopolitical battle” and that the Russian military, on the front line, “are heroes” committed to the future of humanity against the “total hegemony of the United States.”
On the other hand, the head of Russian diplomacy this Thursday accused the West of supporting Ukraine in order to end what he called the “Russian question”, directly criticizing the European Commission president’s visit to Kyiv.
Ursula von der Leyen “said that the outcome of the war should be the defeat of Russia, and such a defeat that it would not happen again for decades,” Lavrov said in an interview broadcast on Russian television.
“Isn’t that racism? Nazism? [isto não é uma] an attempt to solve the “Russian question”? asked the head of Russian diplomacy.
A total of 15 European Commissioners arrived in Kyiv this Thursday, including Vice Presidents Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis.
The delegation is headed by Commission Chair Ursula von der Leyen, who will hold a series of meetings with the Ukrainian government.
For security reasons, only this Thursday morning information about the trip of the EU delegation to Ukraine was made public.