Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States promised yesterday to bolster Europe’s defenses as NATO dubbed Moscow the West’s greatest threat, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to denounce the alliance’s “imperial ambitions.”
Russia “is the most substantial and direct danger to partners’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area,” according to NATO leaders meeting in Madrid.
Biden bragged that the US move was exactly what Putin “didn’t want,” and Moscow reacted with anticipated rage in the face of robust opposition from Ukrainian forces armed with Western weapons.
In an interview with journalists in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, Putin charged that the coalition was using Ukraine and its people as “a vehicle” to “protect their own interests.”
The Russian President said, “The leaders of the NATO countries seek to… demonstrate their superiority, their imperial ambitions.”
After Finland and Sweden join the US-led military alliance, President Putin stated on Wednesday that Russia would retaliate in kind if NATO stationed troops and facilities there.
“We don’t have the issues with Sweden and Finland that we do with Ukraine. Let them join NATO if they so choose “Following meetings with local officials in Turkmenistan, an ex-Soviet state in central Asia, Putin made a statement on Russian public television.