Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu Accuses West of Expanding Conflict in Ukraine to Asia-Pacific Region
BEIJING, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu accused the West on Monday of wanting to expand the conflict in Ukraine to the Asia-Pacific region, according to Russian state media.
Speaking at the Xiangshan Forum, China’s biggest military diplomacy conference, Shoigu stated that the U.S.-led NATO alliance was “covering up the buildup of military force in the Asia-Pacific region with an ostentatious desire for dialogue, imposing alliances and lines of operational interaction on partners,” as reported by the TASS agency.
According to Shoigu, the West is seeking to spread the conflict potential to the Asia-Pacific region by provoking an acute crisis in Europe. He criticized NATO countries for driving an Asian arms race and the emergence of security blocs such as the Quad and AUKUS, which he believes undermine the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and nuclear non-proliferation efforts in Asia.
Shoigu also accused Westerners of imposing the concept of the “indivisibility of security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific region” to justify the emergence of alliance forces and infrastructure in Asia.
The Quad, consisting of the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan, aims to uphold peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. AUKUS, on the other hand, brings together Australia, the United States, and Britain, facilitating the sale of U.S. nuclear-powered submarines and sharing nuclear-propulsion technology with Australia.
Shoigu further claimed that U.S. forces’ exchanges of missile launch information with Tokyo and Seoul were intended to deter Russia and China.
Regarding Russia’s withdrawal of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Shoigu clarified that it does not mean the end of the agreement. He stated that Russia is not lowering its threshold for the use of nuclear weapons but rather restoring parity with the U.S., which has not ratified the treaty.
Shoigu expressed Moscow’s readiness for talks on the post-conflict settlement of the Ukraine crisis and coexistence with the West, but only if Western countries stop seeking Russia’s strategic defeat.
Western countries argue that they are equipping Ukraine with weaponry to resist a full-scale Russian invasion. However, leaders of some countries on NATO’s eastern frontier believe that even if Moscow were defeated in Ukraine, it may retain ambitions to recapture other territories on its western edge that were once part of the Soviet Union.
Driven by such fears, Finland has joined NATO, Sweden is likely to do so shortly, and NATO has bolstered its eastern defenses.
Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Sydney; Writing by Liz Lee and Laurie Chen in Beijing, Olzhas Auyezov in Almaty, and Kevin Liffey; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Gerry Doyle, and Jonathan Oatis