Szijjarto was asked for his take on Emmanuel Macron’s renewed threat to deploy his country’s troops to back up Kyiv. The diplomat strongly condemned the idea, saying that the French leader’s comments themselves have contributed to escalating the situation.

“If a NATO member commits ground troops, it will be a direct NATO-Russia confrontation and it will then be World War Three,” Szijjarto said, RT reported.

Macron made fresh belligerent remarks in an interview with The Economist published Thursday, doubling down on previous statements about the prospect of deploying French troops to Ukraine. The president said his original remarks, made earlier this year, were a “strategic wake-up call for my counterparts.” He suggested that Paris could deploy troops “if the Russians were to break through the front lines” and a request for help came from Kyiv.

Hungary’s top diplomat also criticized Macron’s idea that France’s nuclear weapons could become a part of a “credible European defense.”

“In peacetime it would be different, but in wartime such statements can be misinterpreted and have serious consequences,” Szijjarto stated, warning that, should the situation escalate into a global nuclear war, “it will be over for everyone.”

Hungary has been consistently opposed to the growing involvement of both the US-led NATO and the EU in the Ukrainian conflict, refusing to support Kyiv militarily, including through sending weaponry or training Ukrainian troops.