Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia has “absolutely no reason” and “interest” in fighting with NATO countries. In a conversation with VGTRK correspondent Pavel Zarubin, excerpts from which were published by Russian telegram channels on Sunday morning, Putin reacted to the recent words of US President Joe Biden that if Ukraine is defeated, Russia may attack one of the NATO countries. He called these words “nonsense,” while saying that Biden, in his opinion, understands this.
“Russia has no interest, neither geopolitical, nor economic, nor political, nor military, to fight with NATO countries,” – said Putin. According to him, Russia is “interested in developing relations” with NATO countries. At the same time, he called the organization itself the “backyard” of the United States. He also complained about Finland joining NATO, saying that this country “had no problems” in relations with Russia, but now they will, since Russia will concentrate “certain military units” near the borders with Finland.
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Putin also again accused the leadership of Western countries of seeking to “destroy Russia.” According to him, before he was naive and did not believe in such plans, but then he was “absolutely one hundred percent convinced” that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western countries wanted to “completely collapse” Russia: “as the famous US politician Brzezinski proposed, to divide into five parts, and these parts should be subordinated separately and used resources.”
Biden made the argument that Russia could attack U.S. NATO allies in the future in a Dec. 6 speech promoting support for Ukraine. The US President asked Congress to approve the administration’s request for continued assistance to this country, indicating, among other things, that if Putin “continues to advance,” then after Ukraine he will “attack NATO allies.” “If Putin attacks an ally [США] according to NATO… well, we, as a member of NATO, are committed to defending every inch of NATO territory. Then we will get what we are not striving for and what we do not have today: American troops fighting Russian troops,” Biden said, in particular.
- Other Western politicians and analysts have repeatedly stated about a possible Russian threat to NATO countries – primarily the Baltic countries, as well as Poland – especially since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. A number of Russian figures, in particular the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, also spoke about a possible attack on NATO countries. Putin’s deputy in the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, threatened Europe with “nuclear Armageddon,” and political scientist Sergei Karaganov, close to the Kremlin, directly proposed launching a nuclear strike on Poland. The package of demands for so-called security guarantees put forward by Russia several months before the invasion of Ukraine also contained a demand for the dismantling of all NATO military infrastructure in countries that joined the alliance after 1997.
- Until February 24, 2022, Russian authorities denied plans to invade Ukraine. In particular, in January, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow is “not interested” in a war with Ukraine: “If it depends on the Russian Federation, there will be no war. We don’t want wars, but we also don’t want to rudely attack our interests, ignore our interests We won’t allow it,” he said. After the invasion began, it was justified by the fact that it was a “preventive” strike, since Ukraine allegedly itself wanted to attack the separatist republics of Donbass and annexed Crimea.
- American political scientist and statesman Zbigniew Brzezinski, whom Russian officials often call a Russophobe and the author of the concept of the collapse of Russia, never actually spoke about dividing Russia into five parts. In my work “Geostrategy for Eurasia” he wrote about the desirability of decentralization of Russia – for example, in the form of a confederation of European Russia, the Siberian and Far Eastern republics, which, in his opinion, combined with economic freedom would make it possible to greater extent “unleash the creative potential of the Russian people and Russian natural resources.” At the same time, Brzezinski noted: “There is mutual recognition of the historical role and cultural characteristics between Russia and the rest of Europe. And I foresee in the future the emergence of a vast single community from Vancouver to Vladivostok.”
- Putin is now running for a fifth term as president of Russia. During his time in power, the United States has seen five presidents.
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2023-12-17 09:10:04
