Lavrov comments on Russia’s red lines and patience

The foreign minister has accused the EU and NATO of pushing Ukraine into a wider conflict and repeatedly crossing Moscow’s red lines

Russia’s patience is not unlimited and could eventually “run out,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned, accusing the West of pushing Ukraine into a wider conflict and repeatedly crossing Moscow’s red lines.

Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Türkiye on Saturday, Lavrov rejected what he called a growing Western perception that Russia is unable or unwilling to respond to provocations. He cited reports of Ukraine using the airspace of several NATO states for drone strikes on Russian territory as another breach of Moscow’s “red lines,” warning against dismissing Russia as a “paper tiger” amid its restraint.

“There is a chorus of voices saying that Russia should not be feared… some may even call us a paper tiger... But I would warn against such parallels,” Lavrov said. “We have, in our national character, such a quality as patience. We say: ‘God endured, and told us to endure as well.’ But at some point, patience runs out.”

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Lavrov added that Moscow has deliberately avoided defining its exact red lines, suggesting that ambiguity itself acts as a deterrent.

“I think it is even good that no one understands where that red line is,” he said, emphasizing that Russia is capable of acting if needed. “The president has said more than once: we have something to respond with,” he added without elaborating.

Speaking amid continued Western military support for Kiev, Lavrov said the crisis fits a broader historical pattern, casting European NATO members as its main driver. He accused the West of trying to turn Ukraine into “a trigger for a global threat” and described the conflict as “a war against Russia that the West has been preparing for years.” He argued that, as part of the drive for NATO expansion, Kiev was turned into a hostile state well before the open hostilities began.

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Turning to NATO – whose future has been questioned amid US President Donald Trump’s criticism and threats to withdraw – Lavrov said the bloc is “not in the best condition,” though he does not expect it to be replaced. Instead, he predicted it would remain “an aggressive bloc” despite internal strains.

Russia has long accused the West of waging a proxy war against it through Ukraine, citing NATO expansion as a key root cause of the conflict. Moscow insists that any lasting settlement must address NATO’s eastward expansion, Ukraine’s military alignment with the West, and recognition of Russia’s new borders.

Russia and Ukraine have held several rounds of direct talks, along with trilateral meetings involving the US over the past year, but the peace process has stalled amid the US-Israeli war on Iran.