(MENAFN) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has claimed that NATO’s efforts to turn Ukraine into a military stronghold against Russia posed a direct threat to Moscow’s security and left it with no choice but to launch its military campaign in 2022. In an interview with Hungary’s Magyar Nemzet published Monday, Lavrov argued that NATO has long abandoned its defensive purpose, citing its previous military actions in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya. “Who exactly was attacking NATO members in those cases?” he asked.

According to Lavrov, the US-led alliance has steadily advanced towards Russia’s borders while actively trying to establish Ukraine as a military base to contain Moscow. “The presence of NATO infrastructure in Ukraine and its deeper involvement with the alliance is an immediate danger to our national security,” he emphasized, calling such developments unacceptable for Russia.

Lavrov noted that in 2021, shortly before the conflict escalated, Moscow proposed security guarantees to both the US and NATO to ensure Ukraine would remain neutral. These proposals were dismissed, he said, while the West continued arming Ukraine in hopes of forcefully resolving the disputes over Donbass and Crimea.

“We were left with no choice but to launch the special military operation. I believe any sovereign nation would have acted the same in such circumstances,” Lavrov stated.

He also pointed to Kiev’s alleged persecution of Russian speakers as a key factor behind the conflict, citing the 2014 Odessa tragedy — where dozens of anti-government activists were killed in a fire — as an example of Ukraine’s hostility towards Russians following the Western-backed coup.

Lavrov further accused Ukraine of suppressing Russian language and culture through forced Ukrainization policies, which he claimed have also harmed other ethnic minorities such as Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, Bulgarians, Armenians, Belarusians, and Greeks.

The foreign minister concluded that a lasting resolution to the conflict is impossible without addressing its root causes. These, he said, include Ukraine abandoning its NATO aspirations, securing human rights protections, and international recognition of the “new territorial realities.”

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