Russia has announced it will publish the addresses of facilities in Canada that it claims produce or assemble drones for Ukraine. Behind the diplomatic vocabulary hides something far more direct - a message that Moscow considers these locations legitimate military targets.

The spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said Moscow "won't ignore Canada's participation in supplying Ukraine with unmanned aerial vehicles." According to her, it's a matter of "part of the military infrastructure that works directly for the front," not ordinary industrial capacity. Russia, she added, reserves the right to a "corresponding response" to Ottawa's moves.

The logic is clear and chilling in its simplicity: if a factory makes weapons used against Russian territory, that factory, in the Russian reading, ceases to be a civilian object. Moscow has already applied the same tactic with European companies - the threat to publish addresses is a form of pressure moving on the line between diplomacy and an open threat.

It's worth recalling what here is fact and what is rhetoric. The fact is that Canada really does help Ukraine - training, ammunition, equipment, drones. The rhetoric is the Russian framing that this has made Ottawa a legitimate target. Between those two things lies a vast legal and moral difference, which Moscow deliberately blurs. Minister Sergey Lavrov went further still, claiming the West "buried" European security systems once it renounced arms-control treaties.

For the Balkans, who remember all too well what it means when civilian sites become "legitimate targets," statements like these aren't just distant news from the eastern front. They're a reminder of how easily the language of war shifts the boundaries of what's allowed - first in words, and then, if no one reacts, in deeds.