Russia Warns European Plants Arming Ukraine Could Be Targets

Russia warned it could strike defense manufacturers in European countries that help supply arms to Ukraine, the latest in Moscow’s increasingly direct threats against NATO members over support for Kyiv.

“Factories producing weapons for Ukraine in European countries are potential military targets for Russia,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters Wednesday at an online briefing in Moscow. “No one should assume that military plants outside Ukrainian territory” producing arms for Kyiv “will be safe.”

Zakharova, responding a question on Poland’s plans to produce missiles for US-made Patriot air defense systems, said that by supplying assistance, opening weapons factories and starting joint ventures with Ukrainian companies, European countries are “directly involved” in the conflict, now well into its fifth year.

The comments highlight a recent uptick in confrontational rhetoric between Russia and NATO countries. European officials have been warning of the risk of an intensifying hybrid campaign directed from Moscow that seeks to ramp up pressure on Kyiv’s allies.

Underscoring their worries, Estonia on Tuesday said Russian special services commissioned an August arson attack against a defense manufacturing facility in Tallinn.

The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance meanwhile condemned nuclear threats by Russia after receiving a message from the Russian embassy in Belgium that warned Moscow would use its entire arsenal of weapons to defend its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad. The military organization said that while it was a defensive alliance, it had “what it takes to defend every inch of allied territory.”

Expanding weapons production for Ukraine “only pushes a settlement of the conflict further away,” Zakharova said.