Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
He also made it clear that international boots on the ground in Ukraine would be concidered af declaration of war.
As Western allies reexamine their military options in Ukraine, Moscow insists it has no desire to attack Western nations.
But its top leadership claims any direct clash with European armies would end rapidly.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the stakes clear on Wednesday.
“If Europe attacks Russia, it will be a completely different war, and it will be very short,” Lavrov said, according to state-run news agency TASS.
Boots on the ground equals war declaration
The foreign minister repeated previous Kremlin warnings against deploying foreign forces to Ukraine. Moscow considers any international troop deployment a direct declaration of war.
Lavrov stated that any peace settlement must satisfy Russia’s original invasion goals. He also accused Western nations of attempting to interfere in Russian parliamentary elections, currently being held, providing no evidence for the accusation.
He separately accused Kyiv of suppressing Russian culture, a charge Ukraine firmly rejects.
Gloves come off
Tensions escalated even further when Kremlin aide Nikolai Patrushev aimed a sharp warning directly at Warsaw.
He threatened massive destruction if Polish forces entered the conflict. “If Poland enters into military action against Russia, our country will use the entire arsenal of forces and means at its disposal, and Warsaw will cease to exist within two or three days,” Patrushev said on Tuesday, according to the Kyiv Post.
Russia holds a massive nuclear arsenal. Patrushev, however, stopped short of mentioning atomic weapons directly. His outburst followed statements made by Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski at a conference in Kyiv.
Sikorski voiced confidence in NATO capabilities. “If Russia attacked us and we took our gloves off, I think we would defeat Russia quite quickly,” Sikorski said. He pointed to NATO’s air power of roughly 2,500 military aircraft, calling the edge overwhelming. Patrushev dismissed that view as amateurish.
