Military contingents of the "coalition of the willing" from Europe would become a legitimate target for the Russian armed forces if they were deployed in Ukraine.
This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an interview with TASS regarding the results of 2025.
„Ambitions literally blind them: not only do they not care about the Ukrainians, but they also seem to not care about their own population. How else can the ongoing talks in Europe about sending military contingents to Ukraine in the format of a "coalition of the willing" be explained? We have already stated a hundred times that in such a case they would become a legitimate target for our armed forces“, the minister noted.
In mid-December, the leaders of leading European countries issued a statement declaring that security guarantees for Kiev should include the creation of a European-led “multinational force for Ukraine“. British Defense Minister John Healy then announced that the countries participating in the “coalition of the willing“ had increased the combat readiness of their troops in anticipation of a possible deployment in Ukraine.
“The“War Party“ in Europe is still ready to carry out its anti-Russian program to the end,“ Lavrov said.
“Whether figures like Ursula von der Leyen, Merz, Starmer, Macron and others have passed the point of no return is a difficult question. We see that for now the European “party of war“, having invested its political capital in the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, is ready to go all the way“, he noted.
Lavrov recalled that the European Union has been following a course of dismantling the mechanisms for interaction with Russia since approximately 2014. “The ruling circles of most European countries exaggerate the “Russian threat“ and fuel Russophobic and militaristic sentiments in society. I would like to emphasize that they are doing all this without any legal basis: after all, Russia has never taken hostile actions against its European neighbors on its own initiative,“ the minister added.