Putin slams 'imperial' NATO alliance

RUSSIA: The United States vowed yesterday to reinforce Europe’s defences in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as NATO declared Moscow the West’s greatest threat ― prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to lash out at the alliance’s “imperial ambitions”.

Meeting in Madrid, NATO leaders said Russia “is the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area”.

Biden boasted that the US move was exactly what Putin “didn’t want” ― and Moscow, facing fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces equipped with Western arms, reacted with predictable fury.

Putin accused the alliance of seeking to assert its “supremacy”, telling journalists in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat that Ukraine and its people are “a means” for NATO to “defend their own interests.”

“The NATO countries’ leaders wish to… assert their supremacy, their imperial ambitions,” the Russian President added.

Meanwhile, President Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would respond in kind if NATO deployed troops and infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after they join the US-led military alliance.

“With Sweden and Finland, we don’t have the problems that we have with Ukraine. They want to join Nato, go ahead,” Putin told Russian state television, after talks with regional leaders in the central Asian ex-Soviet state of Turkmenistan.

– THE MALAY MAIL, THE STRAITS TIMES