Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned NATO’s “imperial ambitions”, accusing the military alliance of seeking to assert its “supremacy” through the conflict in Ukraine. The Russian leader also said on Wednesday that he would respond the same if NATO deploys troops and infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after the two Nordic countries join the military alliance. Putin made the remarks a day after NATO member Turkey lifted its veto on Finland and Sweden’s bid to join the alliance, when the three nations agreed to protect each other’s security. The accession of Helsinki and Stockholm to NATO marks one of the biggest changes in European security in decades. “With Sweden and Finland, we do not have the problems we have with Ukraine. “They want to join NATO, go ahead,” Putin told Russian state television after talks with regional leaders in Turkmenistan, a former Soviet state in Central Asia. “But they have to understand that there was no threat before, and now, if military units and infrastructure are developed there, we have to respond to the species and create the same threats to the territories from which threats are made against us,” he said. Moscow’s relations with Helsinki and Stockholm will inevitably deteriorate due to their NATO membership, he added. “Everything was fine between us, but now there may be some tensions, there certainly will be,” Putin said. “It is inevitable if there is a threat to us.”
“Peace has been destroyed in Europe”
Putin also denied that Moscow forces were responsible for a rocket attack on a busy shopping mall in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk earlier this week, in which at least 18 people were killed and many more were missing in the rubble. “Our army is not attacking any civilian infrastructure. “We have every opportunity to know where he is,” Putin told a news conference in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat. “I am convinced that this time, everything was done exactly this way,” Putin said. Ukraine accuses Russia of targeting the mall and its citizens. Putin made the comment as NATO described Russia as the biggest “immediate threat” to Western security since its invasion of Ukraine. The military alliance also agreed to plans to modernize Kiev’s besieged armed forces, saying it was fully behind the Ukrainians’ “heroic defense of their country”. “President Putin’s war against Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and created the largest security crisis in Europe since World War II,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference. “NATO responded with strength and unity,” he said. US President Joe Biden has announced more ground, naval and air force deployments across Europe, including a permanent military headquarters with an escort battalion in Poland – the first full-time US deployment development on NATO’s eastern fringes. Top US intelligence official Avril Haines said Wednesday that the most likely short-term scenario for the war is a tough one in which Moscow is only gaining ground but making no progress toward its goal. Of Ukraine.
