President Vladimir Putin stated on Thursday (October 21) that two days after the US Secretary of Defense staged his desire to support Kiev and encourage it to join NATO, the Western-backed Ukrainian military development poses a serious threat to Russia.
Putin told a group of reporters and Russian experts that Lloyd Austin’s visit to Ukraine on Tuesday said that no third country has the right to veto the NATO he wants to join, which actually paved the way for Kiev to join.
Putin said that Russia’s interests are targeted regardless of whether it exists or not.
“(Ukraine) formal accession to NATO may not happen, but deploying U.S. and British military infrastructure on Ukrainian territory does not necessarily have to be a NATO member,” Putin told the Valday Discussion Club, according to a report. Official record“This really poses a threat to Russia. We know this.”
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the outbreak of war between Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine in the same year, the United States has been Ukraine’s strongest supporter, and Kiev claims that this war has killed 14,000 people.
The head of the Kremlin has always made it clear that Ukraine and Russia have close ties, which can be traced back to NATO member states, which will be Moscow’s red line.
After NATO expelled eight members of the NATO delegation on suspicion of espionage, Russia effectively severed its diplomatic relations with NATO this week. The NATO defense minister agreed on Thursday on a new master plan to withstand any potential Russian attacks on multiple fronts.
Russia has reported three incidents in the past week, adding to tensions with Washington. Russia said its forces intercepted American ships or aircraft when they violated its waters or airspace, although the United States disputed the details.
However, after hours of extensive discussions in southern Russia, Putin was more optimistic about relations with President Joe Biden’s government.
He said that the negotiations between Moscow and Washington on strategic stability and cybersecurity are moving in the right direction, and the June summit between the two in Geneva was fruitful.
Putin also said that Biden was right to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. The new Taliban government sent representatives to Moscow this week to negotiate the reconstruction of the country after the 20-year US military presence.
He said that in order to promote stability, Afghanistan should unfreeze its financial assets-Washington opposed this position. Washington said it has no plans to release billions of dollars in Afghan gold, investment and foreign exchange reserves, which are stored in the United States and frozen afterwards. The Taliban seized power in August.
(Editing by Georgi Getoff)
