RUSSIAN TENSION: Putin Warns He’ll Deploy Military To Counter NATO ‘Threat’

President Vladimir Putin threatened a military response to counter NATO expansion toward Russia’s border, while insisting he wasn’t issuing an ultimatum as he heaped blame on the U.S. for rising tensions in Europe.

The U.S. and its allies “must understand that we have nowhere to retreat further” and Russia can’t allow them to deploy missiles in Ukraine that would be a few minutes’ strike distance from Moscow, Putin told senior officers Tuesday at the Russian Defense Ministry. “This is at the doorstep of our home.”

Russia will “take adequate military-technical response measures and react harshly to unfriendly steps” by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Putin said, without elaborating on a phrase that could refer to weapons deployments. “Armed conflict and bloodshed are absolutely not our choice,” he said. “We want to resolve the question by political and diplomatic means.”

Putin hit out after Russia demanded last week that NATO withdraw forces to the positions they held in 1997, before the alliance expanded to include former Soviet satellite states in eastern Europe, as part of proposed new security treaties. The U.S. and Europe accuse Russia of a massive build-up of troops near Ukraine in preparation for a possible invasion as early as next month, something Russia denies.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday the alliance wants “meaningful dialogue” with Moscow and he plans to call a NATO-Russia Council meeting as soon as possible in the New Year. NATO suspended practical cooperation through the council after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, though the two sides have met at ambassadorial level numerous times.

“A dialogue with Russia needs to be based on the core principles of European security and to address NATO’s concerns about Russia’s actions,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels. “And it needs to take place in consultation with NATO’s European partners, including with Ukraine.”

If U.S. and NATO missiles appear in Ukraine “the flight time to Moscow will be reduced to 7-10 minutes, and if hypersonic weapons are deployed – to within 5 minutes,” Putin said. “This is a serious challenge for us, a challenge for our security.”

NATO says it’s a defensive body and its deployments in member states have come in response to threats from Russia. While the alliance has said the door is open to Ukraine for eventual membership, there’s little prospect of that happening any time soon. There are no proposals from the U.S. or NATO to place missiles in Ukraine or deploy troops there.

Russia sees potential risks to its territory and Crimea if the U.S. put hypersonic missiles in Ukraine then allowed “extremists” there to carry out attacks, Putin said. “Do they think we don’t see these threats?” he said.

While there are “signals” the U.S. is ready to discuss Russia’s proposals, there’s also a risk that Washington will try to bog down negotiations, Putin said.

Russia can’t trust security guarantees offered by the U.S. because Washington easily walks away from its commitments, the president said. Still, “clearly stated” written guarantees are better than oral ones, he said.

(c) 2021, Bloomberg · Ilya Arkhipov 

{Matzav.com}