EU weighs gravity of Russia’s threat to bomb diplomats in Kyiv

The ritual condemnation of death threats against EU diplomats in Kyiv masks concern Russia could bomb a European embassy and get away with it.

The EU foreign service summoned Russia’s top envoy to the EU in Brussels, chargé d’affaires ad interim Karen Malayan, on Tuesday (26 May) to formally complain.

The Dutch, German, Polish, and Swedish foreign ministries also called in Russian ambassadors after a rolling series of threats, issued first by foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, then foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, and deputy-security head Dmitry Medvedev, who said Moscow would “trim … the head count” of EU diplomats in Ukraine if they did not evacuate.

If Russia did hit an EU embassy in Kyiv, for instance with a high-tech Oreshnik missile, it would not be the first time it had damaged European diplomatic missions during the Ukraine war.

Pro-Russian paramilitary fighters fired a grenade launcher at the Polish consulate in the town of Lutsk in 2017, for instance.

A Russian airstrike destroyed Slovenia’s consulate in Kharkiv in 2021, while a stray missile hit the German consulate in Kyiv in 2022, and two missile strikes 20 seconds apart and 50m from the EU embassy in the Ukrainian capital on 8 August 2025 shattered windows and knocked down ceiling tiles.

But it would mark a new height of criminality if Putin hit an embassy on purpose after having publicly telegraphed his intentions in advance.

Terrorist attacks on embassies and collateral damage in wartime were common in history, but “this would be unheard of in modern times,” said an EU diplomat on Wednesday, citing the post-WWII Geneva and Vienna conventions on “war crimes” and diplomatic relations.

“Putin knows very well that bombing Western diplomats would be an unprecedented escalation,” a second EU diplomat said.

A third EU diplomat told this website: “Should that ever happen, it would have enormous consequences”.

Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus in 2024 was even seen as a casus belli by Tehran.

But a Russian strike on a German or Polish embassy in Kyiv would not qualify to trigger Nato’s Article V on mutual territorial defence, said former senior Nato official Jamie Shea.

Fly on EU wall

And yet, given the gravity of the issue, a fly on the wall in Malayan’s meeting at the EU foreign service in Brussels on Tuesday, or in any of the similar meetings in Berlin, The Hague, Stockholm, and Warsaw, might not have been impressed with Europe’s pushback.

“I didn’t see the readout [on Malayan], but I can tell you how these things usually go,” said an EU contact.

“Malayan would have driven down the road to the foreign-service building with a notetaker, who was probably an SVR or GRU goon,” he told EUobserver, referring to Russia’s foreign and military intelligence services.

“He probably would have met with [Matti] Maasikas – no one higher up than that,” the diplomat added, referring to an EU official, who is “managing director” of EU foreign-service chief Kaja Kallas’ “Europe” department and who used to be EU ambassador in Kyiv.

“He [Malayan] would have heard out Maasikas, rolling his eyes or making stupid faces, but without replying directly to any of the EU’s complaints,” the diplomat said.

“Then he [Malayan] would have seized the floor to accuse the EU of backing ‘Ukrainian terrorists, who bomb schools, and slaughter innocent women and children’,” the EU diplomat added.

“In other words, it was a meeting between the deaf [Russia] and the dumb [EU], even though it was still necessary in protocol terms,” he said.

Some Russia watchers told EUobserver the latest EU diplomat threats were merely a sideshow by Russian president Vladimir Putin to distract Russian people’s attention from the fact his invasion of Ukraine was going badly.

Keir Giles, an English writer on Russia, called Medevdev the Kremlin’s “court jester”.

Giles also made light of Lavrov’s remarks on the subject to US secretary of state Marco Rubio: “Interesting. So, he [Lavrov] is implying … they [the Russians] don’t have sufficient targeting accuracy to be sure they are not going to hit US facilities [in Kyiv]”.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (l) with former Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó (c) and Russian president Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin (Source: Kremlin).

Putin a bit ‘desperate’

“For many in Brussels, it [Russia’s Kyiv threat] seems quite desperate,” said an EU diplomat.

“No one takes it seriously,” said another.

Medvedev’s threat to “trim” the EU “head count” X post did appeal to some Russian war-influencers, such as ‘Z-blogger’ German Kulikovsky and Telegram poster ‘Fighterbomber’.

“Maybe a few diplomats will die? Well, it happens, it’s war, after all. And in the end, this can be used to great advantage. Especially if diplomats from the ‘right countries’ die,” wrote Fighterbomber on Tuesday.

But most Russia war-bloggers ignored the Kremlin, while complaining about Ukraine-war losses, or saying that Putin’s firing of an Oreshnik at Kyiv on 25 May was a PR stunt and a waste of money.

If Putin ever did bomb an EU embassy, it would likely trigger tougher sanctions.

The European Commission is currently holding “confessionals” (behind-closed-doors interviews with member states’ ambassadors) to see what to include in the 21st round of Russia measures, which could be adopted at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg on 15 June.

As things stand, this is to include more visa-bans and asset-freezes “on those contributing to Russia’s military-industrial complex and enabling shadow-fleet activities,” an EU diplomat said.

If Putin ever did what Medvedev threatened, it would trigger harsher economic sanctions, as well as “strongly worded statements, recalling some [EU] ambassadors [from Moscow], expelling some Russian diplomats [from EU capitals],” another diplomat told EUobserver on Wednesday.

Russian chargé d’affairs ad interim to the EU, Malayan (r), at a war memorial in Brussels (Source: mid.ru)

Diplomatic ‘outrage’

But that would still amount to doing “nothing”, the EU diplomat said.

“To me, all these measures would still qualify as expressing diplomatic ‘outrage’ … We are running out of possibilities on what to do [to curb Putin’s aggression]. If we knew what to do we would have done it by now,” he said.

Meanwhile, the fact the US did not sign an open letter at the UN with the EU-27 and some 25 other friendly states on Tuesday condemning Russia’s Kyiv threats was another sign that Europe could no longer count on its old American ally to keep it safe.

And going back to Fighterbomber, the Russian Telegram poster, on hitting the “right’” EU member-state targets, Putin’s test of European resolve might be calibrated to tempt capitulation.

“As to large and small member states, I think the EU reaction would be different if Russia struck Germany’s embassy in Kyiv compared to, for example, Latvia’s,” one of the EU diplomats said.

“Before 2022 [when Russia fully invaded Ukraine], the EU foreign service had never once formally summoned a Russian ambassador to complain, despite everything Putin was already doing,” he added, referring to Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

“The irony is that, before 2022, there was still sense in reaching out to Moscow, because it still cared, to some extent, about EU relations,” the diplomat said.

“But speaking to Malayan today is like inviting a cannibal for dinner and asking him to be vegetarian,” he said.