France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Friday that Russia does not defend international law either in Ukraine or Iran with its actions, in response to comments made by his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in an interview on French TV.
"Mr. Lavrov was able to calmly spread his propaganda last night on a French television channel ... You do not defend international law by launching a war of aggression," Barrot told reporters on the sidelines of a G7 meeting in France.
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Speaking to France Television on Thursday, Lavrov said that by standing with Iran in its war against the US and Israel, Russia's focus was on upholding international law. He added that the US-Israeli strikes on Iran that sparked the Middle East war had breached these rules.
But he rejected any notion of Russia breaking international law in Ukraine, claiming its forces never targeted "exclusively civilian" targets.
After the interview, Ukraine's ambassador to France Vadym Omelchenko said on X people must be wondering why French television had given a platform to "a war criminal".
Russia specialist Dimitri Minic described the interview as "catastrophic".
"In case France TV teams still underestimate information warfare, they should understand that Moscow has made it the central weapon of its war against the West," he wrote on X.
Researcher Etienne Marcuz described it as a "disgraceful interview during which a minister from an opposing power can calmly reel off his talking points at prime time on France's main public channel, and almost without any pushback" from the television presenter.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AFP)
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