Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has reaffirmed that the West will face equivalent retaliation if it arms Moscow’s adversaries.
“This is absolutely, as they say, a symmetrical response. If you arm our enemy, then we will decide for ourselves how to respond to your hostile actions,” Lavrov stated during an interview with Rossiya-1 TV channel, an excerpt of which was shared on Sunday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated during a meeting with heads of leading global news agencies, including Anadolu, on Wednesday that Moscow is considering symmetrical actions in response to the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine.
Lavrov emphasized that he believes the West heard and understood Putin’s remarks on the matter. He also labeled recent statements by French officials denying the presence of French instructors in Ukraine as “a lie.”
“Look how our French colleagues reacted. The Prime Minister of France, Gabriel Attal, suddenly started saying that we (France) have no instructors there. This is not true, and they know it,” Lavrov asserted.
On Thursday, Attal denied that his country would send troops to Ukraine during an interview with France 2, further mentioning that the idea of sending French instructors to train Ukrainian soldiers “is not taboo.”
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized the West’s delivery of long-range weapons to Ukraine, suggesting that Moscow could similarly arm other countries to target Western interests.
Speaking at a rare press conference with foreign media, including Anadolu Agency, Putin responded to several Western countries, including the United States, permitting Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia. Moscow has labeled this a significant miscalculation.
“If someone thinks it is possible to supply such weapons to a warzone to attack our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same class to regions of the world where there will be strikes on sensitive facilities of those (Western) countries,” Putin stated.
“The response can be asymmetric. We will think about it,” he added.
Putin dismissed as “bollocks” the notion that Russia plans to attack NATO members, asserting, “There is no need to look for some imperial ambitions of ours. There are none.”
He warned that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine were “a very negative step,” accusing donors of “controlling” the weapons.
Putin singled out Germany for criticism, noting that the appearance of German-supplied tanks on Ukrainian soil caused a “moral and ethical shock in Russia” due to World War II’s legacy.
He added, “When they say that there will be more missiles which will hit targets on Russian territory, this definitively destroys Russian-German relations.”
‘Irrecoverable losses’
Addressing representatives from various news outlets, Putin reiterated that Russia “did not start the war against Ukraine,” instead blaming a pro-Western revolution in 2014. “Everyone thinks that Russia started the war in Ukraine. I would like to emphasize that nobody in the West, in Europe, wants to remember how this tragedy started,” he said.
Putin declined to disclose Russia’s battlefield losses in the conflict, now exceeding two years. “As a rule, no one talks about it,” he said, adding, “If we talk about irrecoverable losses, the ratio is one to five.”
Putin was also asked about the implications of a victory by former US President Donald Trump or incumbent Joe Biden for US-Russia relations. He downplayed the significance, saying, “By and large there’s no difference.”
