SpaceWar.com reports: “Russia views comments by President Emmanuel Macron about extending France’s nuclear deterrent to other European countries as a ‘threat’, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

Lavrov also reaffirmed his country’s opposition to European forces being deployed in Ukraine if an accord was made to halt the conflict.

Macron on Wednesday called Russia a ‘threat to France and Europe’ and said France was ‘legitimately worried’ about the United States shifting its position on the Ukraine conflict under US President Donald Trump.

The French leader said he would open a debate on extending France’s nuclear deterrent, following a phone conversation with Germany’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz.

‘Of course it is a threat against Russia. If he sees us as a threat… and says that it is necessary to use a nuclear weapon, is preparing to use a nuclear weapon against Russia, of course it is a threat,’ Lavrov said at a press conference…”