Moscow has no intention of fighting the bloc, but is ready to respond to any attack, the president has said

The EU is still clinging to the "fantasy" of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, President Vladimir Putin has said. He warned that while Moscow has no intention of warring with the bloc, the consequences would be dire if it attacked Russia.

Putin was commenting on the increasingly belligerent rhetoric coming from some European nations, as well as the EU's de-facto rejection of the US-drafted Ukraine peace plan.

Last month, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius claimed that direct confrontation between Russia and NATO in Europe could be possible as early as 2028. Meanwhile, France has floated the idea of sending NATO troops to Ukraine.

Kiev's Western backers also derided the peace proposal put forward by Washington in November as favoring Moscow and issued their own set of demands that Russia dismissed as "unconstructive."

According to Putin, Western nations nourish a "fantasy about inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia and are still stuck in these illusions." Such an outcome has been impossible from the start, but they cannot bring themselves to admit it, the president said.

They are trying to derail the US-backed peace process because they do not like its potential outcome, Putin stated. The EU "does not have a peaceful agenda. They are on the side of war."

Moscow has no plan to fight either the EU or NATO, he maintained. Yet if Western nations were to launch a war against Russia, "events could very quickly reach a point where there will simply... be no one left for us to negotiate with," the Russian leader warned.

The EU has cited the alleged "Russian threat" to justify military spending hikes, such as Brussels' 800 billion ($930 billion) ReArm Europe plan and NATO members' pledge to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP.