Russia warns against Ukrainian NATO membership
Speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament has warned against Ukraine’s possible membership in NATO, saying that Russia will not leave such a move unanswered.
Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the State Duma, said Ukraine’s membership in NATO is “imaginable,” saying such a development would bring the Western military alliance right on Russia’s doorstep.
“For the previous two decades, we thought we were having a productive dialogue” with NATO, building up joint projects and relations, he said. “Now, all this is in ruins.”
He said, nevertheless, that he was optimistic and believed that “honest and decent people” would prevail, and eventually, “responsible politicians” would take measures to guard the people’s interests.
The Russian parliament speaker further said that Russians had a lot of cultural, historical and traditional commonalities with Europeans, and needed to resolve “the black stripe in relations between Russia and the West” peacefully.
Russian concerns
Moscow has repeatedly warned against the United States and its NATO allies’ scheme to harm the present system of international security in its strive for global domination, including through the expansion of NATO.
The chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, said in April, “It has become obvious that continuing the implementation of US and NATO missile defense plans creates a real threat to Russian strategic nuclear forces.”
They aim to “bring Russia to its knees” by causing unrest, he said.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has also said Washington has crossed all lines by attempting to drag Ukraine into its league as part of its wider plan to expand NATO and alienate Russia’s neighbors.
Shoigu also accused NATO of increasing the potential for war in Eastern Europe by practicing “the use of American tactical nuclear weapons deployed in several European countries.”
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