MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. French President Emmanuel Macron is making statements about possible sending of troops to Ukraine to please Washington and provoke NATO allies, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TASS General Director Andrey Kondrashov for the Belgrade documentary project.

"All the statements by French President Macron over the past few years (and he periodically revived them in the media space) about creating some kind of strategic autonomy - all this turned out to be nothing. No one is thinking about this now. Now, despite the fact that Macron insists that it is still possible that they will send ground troops to Ukraine, this is no longer about strategic autonomy, but about how to please the United States, and at the same time provoke allies in the North Atlantic Alliance itself," the Russian Foreign Minister noted.

Lavrov noted that politicians and the younger generation in the Baltic countries come up with similar ideas.

"In Poland, politicians are mature, but they are also ready to play such a provocative game. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is still showing at least some caution. But [France’s] provocation of the topic of deploying NATO troops in Ukraine is aimed, in particular, at undermining his position in the European Union in the context of Franco-German rivalry. There are a lot of things there. Such a quarrelsome organization. What comes first is not the national interest of its peoples and states, but personal political narrow selfish plans, aspirations and intrigues. This is sad," the minister said.

According to Lavrov, if we compare the generation of politicians of the previous era, how legendary they were, we will see that both the current politicians both "teenagers and politicians of mature biological age do not reach the level of such major figures as Charles de Gaulle, J. Chirac, F. Mitterrand, G. Kohl, G. Schroder."

"Those were people who really thought about the interests of their country, without subordinating them to a single collective Western demand, which we see everywhere now. Europe has completely gone under the United States. There is no independence," Lavrov concluded.