Moscow says West will receive symmetric response if it arms Russia’s ‘enemies’

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated his country’s position that the West will receive an equal response if it arms Moscow’s “enemies.”

“This is absolutely, as they say, a symmetrical answer. If you arm our enemy, then we will decide for ourselves how to respond to your hostile actions,” Lavrov said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 TV channel, an excerpt of which was shared on Sunday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with the heads of leading global news agencies, including Anadolu, on Wednesday that Moscow considered symmetrical action in response to the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine.

Expressing that he has no doubt the West heard and understood Putin’s remarks on the matter, Lavrov also called recent statements by French officials on the absence of French instructors in Ukraine “a lie.”

“Look how our French colleagues vibrated, the Prime Minister of France (Gabriel Attal) suddenly began to say that we (France) have no instructors there. This is not true, and they know it,” Lavrov said.

On Thursday, Attal rejected that his country will send troops to Ukraine during an interview with France 2, further saying that the idea of sending French instructors to train Ukrainian soldiers “is not taboo.”​​​​​​​