Lavrov slams ‘fantasies’ about Western troops in Ukraine

Such speculation will “only make the situation worse,” Russia’s foreign minister has warned

The ongoing speculation about the potential deployment of troops to Ukraine by Western nations are “fantasies” that “only make the situation worse,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

The top diplomat delivered the remarks on Thursday during a press conference of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) ministerial meeting in Malta.

“I believe that all these fantasies only make the situation worse and show that the people who are running around with such ideas stubbornly prefer not to hear the very clear warnings that [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin has repeatedly made publicly,” Lavrov stated.

The remarks come amid a string of media reports that suggested France and the UK have been considering deploying their troops to Ukraine. The force is reportedly supposed to act as peacekeepers to observe a ceasefire in the event of Moscow and Kiev engaging in talks. The topic has been also invoked by the German leadership, yet Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said the deployment of the country’s troops to Ukraine was “out of the question” before a “real ceasefire” was achieved.

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Lavrov also reiterated that Moscow welcomes any constructive initiatives to bring the Ukraine conflict to an end. However, Russia does not believe any Western-based organizations will be of any help, and is seeking to strengthen security for everyone in “our whole continent” of Eurasia, he said.

“All those initiatives floated by our partners on different continents, which are aimed at finding a political solution, they, of course, must take into account the issue of ensuring the security interests of each country and, of course, the issue of respecting human rights,” the top diplomat stressed.

Relations between Russia and the collective West have changed and will not return to the situation prior to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in early 2022, Lavrov warned.

“All the previous years after the end of the Cold War, the West agreed on some right things, rhetorically praised these right things, but in reality grossly violated all the agreements and did everything to suppress the legitimate interests of Russia,” Lavrov said.