2023-12-17 13:18:41
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MOSCOW – Russian leader Vladimir Putin rejected US President Joe Biden’s statement that Russia would attack NATO countries if it won the war in Ukraine. He added that Russia is not interested in fighting the NATO military alliance.
The war in Ukraine has triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Biden warned last year that direct confrontation between NATO and Russia would trigger World War Three.
In his plea to Republicans not to block further military aid earlier this month, Biden warned that if Putin wins over Ukraine the Russian leader will stop at nothing and will attack the NATO country.
“This is complete nonsense – and I think President Biden understands that,” Putin said in an interview published on Sunday by Rossiya state television. He added that Biden appeared to be trying to justify his “wrong policies” toward Russia.
“Russia has no reason, no interest – no geopolitical interest, whether economic, political or military – to go to war with NATO countries,” Putin said.
The US-led NATO alliance was founded in 1949 to provide Western security against the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the region expanded to include several former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries.
Putin has repeatedly cited NATO’s post-Cold War expansion as evidence of Western arrogance in dealing with Russia’s security problems.
According to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more countries in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”
Putin said that Finland’s entry into NATO in April would force Russia to “concentrate certain military units” in northern Russia near their border.
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