(MENAFN) Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken has clarified remarks suggesting NATO could “wipe Moscow off the map,” emphasizing that his comments were made in the context of deterrence rather than aggression.

Posting on social media Thursday, Francken explained that NATO “is not at war with Russia and has no desire to be,” calling the US-led alliance “by definition a defensive alliance.” He stressed that the bloc’s longstanding “strike back” principle, in place for 76 years, forms the foundation of NATO’s deterrence posture. “That’s what I meant in the… interview, and I don’t take back a single word,” he wrote.

Francken’s remarks came after he dismissed concerns that supplying US-made Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine could provoke direct conflict between Russia and NATO. He argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not use nuclear weapons because any attack on Brussels would leave Moscow “flattened.”

Moscow reacted strongly, condemning the comments as “irresponsible” and emblematic of “military psychosis.” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko described them as typical of “the atmosphere of military psychosis” in Western Europe, while the Russian Embassy in Belgium called Francken’s statements “absurd and disconnected from reality.”

Russia has framed the Ukraine conflict as a NATO proxy war, maintaining that Western arms deliveries only prolong hostilities rather than alter the outcome.

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