RT.com – Jan 20, 2026

Recent statements by top European officials, including NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, suggest that the West is preparing for a direct military conflict with Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a press conference on the results of Russian diplomatic activities in 2025, Lavrov pointed to remarks by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, and other politicians such as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the leaders of Germany, France, and the UK. “They are seriously preparing for war against the Russian Federation, and, in fact, are not even hiding it.”

The foreign minister added that while Russia is determined to “eliminate the root causes” of the Ukraine conflict, it is the West that has been “deliberately creating” these issues for many years in an effort to turn Ukraine into a “threat to Russia’s security.”

He noted that although the goal of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Moscow is not expressed by Western leaders as often these days, their actions suggest that the idea is still alive in their “minds and plans,” pointing to the continued support of the “openly Nazi regime” in Kiev and its course for the “legislative and physical extermination of everything Russian.”

Russia has rejected Western claims that it poses a threat to any foreign countries, dismissing it as “nonsense” and fearmongering meant to justify inflated military budgets across Europe.

Nevertheless, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have continued to push the claims and recently withdrew from international treaties banning anti-personnel landmines, and have announced plans to produce and deploy them along their borders with Russia.

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