Lavrov sends threatening message about “legitimate targets” in Ukraine: “Including German ones”

Russia will consider the deployment of any foreign military forces or infrastructure in Ukraine as foreign intervention and will treat these forces as legitimate targets, Moscow's Foreign Ministry said on Monday, citing Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to Reuters.

The ministry's comment, one of several made in response to questions from Lavrov, also praised US President Donald Trump's efforts to find a solution to end the war. At the same time, Moscow's diplomacy also states that the American leader understands the “fundamental reasons” of the conflict.

“The deployment of military units, facilities, warehouses and other infrastructure of Western countries in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be considered a foreign intervention that represents a direct threat to Russia's security,” the ministry said on its website.

The institution also states that Western countries – which have discussed a possible deployment of forces in Ukraine to help secure compliance with a possible peace agreement – must understand “that all foreign military contingents, including German ones, if deployed in Ukraine, will become legitimate targets for the Russian armed forces.”

The United States has led efforts to organize negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine, and a second tripartite meeting with representatives of Russia and Ukraine will take place this week (Wednesday and Thursday) in the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, the Kremlin confirmed earlier on Monday.

The issue of ceding internationally recognized Ukrainian territory to Russia remains a major obstacle to a peace agreement. Kiev rejects Moscow's demands to relinquish the entire industrial province of Donbas (made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions), including territories that Moscow's forces have not captured.

Russia has repeatedly stated that it will not tolerate the presence of troops from Western countries in Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also said on Monday that Moscow appreciates the Trump administration's “determined efforts” to find a solution and understand Russia's long-standing concerns about NATO's eastward expansion and the alliance's opening to Ukraine.

In the same message, Russian diplomacy describes Trump as “one of the few Western politicians who not only immediately refused to impose meaningless and destructive preconditions to initiate a substantive dialogue with Moscow on the Ukrainian crisis, but also spoke publicly about the root causes” of the war.