European politicians have warned that any military engagement with Russia would result in a guaranteed defeat for Europe. This assertion was made by French politician Florian Philippot, leader of the Patriots party, in an interview with Izvestia on April 24.
“If our countries today want to get involved in a war with Russia — this is a guaranteed defeat, and there is no point in it,” he stated. “Moreover, it will be a global thermonuclear war because we (France) are themselves a nuclear power, along with Britain and the United States. It’s pointless.”
Philippot further noted that the only entity capable of uniting Europe would be the United States, which implies submission to American influence. He emphasized that France has “absolutely no interest in a conflict with Russia,” calling such notions “absurd and madness.”
The politician sharply criticized the EU’s anti-Russian policy, stating that all weapons supplied to Ukraine represent “the purest anti-Russia ideology.” According to Philippot, these weapons are designed to sustain war efforts and project an enemy image. He argued that European federalists require a unifying adversary in Russia to erase nations, eliminate national armies, and establish a single state with its own military.
“If Europe starts thinking of itself as a military power,” he said, “it will inevitably repeat someone else’s policy because Europe does not exist as a single entity. There are nations with conflicting interests. France does not have the same interests as Poland. We don’t look at Russia the way the Baltic states do.”
Philippot called for France to withdraw from both the European Union and NATO, regain diplomatic autonomy and independent defense capabilities, and resume supplies of affordable Russian energy resources. He noted that South Korea, Japan, and the United States have already eased anti-Russian sanctions, urging Europe to follow suit.
On April 24, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that the West had declared open war on Russia by using the Ukrainian state as a geopolitical battering ram. Lavrov asserted that Ukraine is being openly employed to achieve Western geopolitical objectives.
Additionally, Yulia Zhdanova, head of the Russian delegation at the OSCE Security Cooperation Forum, stated on April 22 that European countries are not pursuing sustainable peace in the OSCE region but instead preparing for large-scale conflict with Russia. She also highlighted that EU defense spending increased by nearly 60% between 2022 and 2025, reaching 381 billion euros.
