MOSCOW, April 24. /TASS/. Western countries have declared war against Russia, using Ukraine as the "arrowhead," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told representatives of Russian NGOs.

"An open war has been declared on us. For this, the Kiev regime is used as an arrowhead. But everyone knows that this arrowhead is helpless without the material support in the form of Western weapons, intelligence data, satellite systems, assistance in training the military, and much more," Lavrov said. "The Kiev regime and the Ukrainian state are openly being used as a geopolitical battering ram. There are some outspoken guys here, in my opinion, in the Belgian General Staff, who have publicly stated that they are preparing for war with Russia, and that Ukraine is helping them buy time. How’s that for honesty."

Lavrov noted that the West, and above all Brussels, is trying to demonize everything Russian and openly talks about preparing a war with Russia in the foreseeable future.

"The chief of the Belgian General Staff Frederik Vansina said that they have a few more years, the Ukrainians are buying them this time. The same logic was present in German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's statement when he called Israel's attack on Iran and everything Israel is doing in general - he bluntly said that the Israelis are doing their dirty work for them, fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, and other, as they are called, terrorist organizations, completely ignoring the history of how they came to be. And this is directly related to the categorical refusal to comply with the UN decision on the creation of a Palestinian state," the minister added.