What did Lavrov's warning on French instructors signal?

What did Moscow mean when it warned that French military instructors would be fair game in Ukraine? On 4 June 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that any French instructors deployed to Ukraine would be "legitimate targets".

The warning came two days after Russia accused NATO and the United States of "provoking a new level of tension". That accusation, made on 2 June 2024, followed a decision by some allies to let Ukraine's military use Western-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia.

Taken together, the two statements show Russia framing Western military aid as an escalation in which both weapons and personnel were at issue. The first concerned where Ukraine could use the arms it received. The second concerned whether trainers from a NATO member would be present on Ukrainian soil.

The statements were part of the wider debate on military aid to Ukraine and on Russia's relations with NATO and the United States. For readers looking back, 4 June 2024 stands out as a day when Russia's foreign minister set out in blunt terms how Moscow would treat foreign military personnel in Ukraine.