Moscow-Sana
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stressed the need to draw up binding agreements between Russia and NATO to prevent NATO countries from expanding to the east and mobilizing their forces near the Russian borders.
“Since the end of World War II, Russia has repeatedly received assurances that NATO and its forces will not move an inch towards the east, but all these promises are forgotten and none of them have been implemented, and as a result we are witnessing the deplorable security situation in the Europe".
“For our part, we are confident that the only way to resolve this situation is to establish long-term agreements that will prevent NATO from further expanding to the east and from deploying weapons systems that pose a direct threat to Russia’s borders,” Zakharova added.
She pointed out that the recent meeting of the foreign ministers of the alliance, which was held in the Latvian capital, "Riga" on the 30th of last month and the first of this month, once again shows "NATO's obsession with fighting against imaginary threats instead of cooperating with others to face real challenges."
She added, "They focus again on the idea of a "possible aggression" against Ukraine by Russia, and they also accuse our country of moving close to the borders of NATO and threatening its countries, just because we move our forces on our lands, while what is actually happening is that the NATO countries are the ones who move close to Our borders are carrying out massive military exercises near it.”
The Russian spokeswoman stressed that Ukraine's accession to NATO is a red line for Moscow, and that the current policy of dragging Kiev into the alliance's orbit and using Ukraine's military infrastructure in an attempt to turn this country into a foothold for NATO forces in the confrontation with Russia may lead to consequences catastrophic negativity and escalation of the military and political situation in Europe.
