One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top advisers says NATO is “actively involved” in attacks on Russia. Minister Nikolai Patrushev is an old KGB buddy of Putin and one of the most influential figures in the Kremlin.
Nikolai Patrushev spoke to the newspaper ‘Argumenty I Fakty’ on the occasion of NATO’s 75th anniversary. According to the Kremlin chief, history shows that the Western alliance is a source of “danger, crisis and conflict”. “NATO is a de facto party to the Ukrainian conflict and is actively involved in organizing shelling of Russian areas,” Patrushev said.
“Within NATO, collective decisions are made about supplying new weapons with better technical capabilities and that can be deployed at longer distances. NATO instructors from various countries train mercenaries and saboteurs to participate in anti-Russian operations,” Putin’s adviser said.
Attacks deep into Russia
Last year, Ukraine regularly struck deep into Russian territory. Oil refineries and weapons factories, among others, were bombed with drones. For example, on Tuesday in the autonomous republic of Tatarstan, about 1,000 kilometers as the crow flies from the border with Ukraine, a factory where Russians allegedly produce Shahed attack drones was attacked.
LOOK. Drone attack on factories in Tatarstan, Russia
The United States has repeatedly said it does not support Ukrainian attacks in Russia.
Third World War
Putin recently warned the West that a direct conflict between Russia and NATO would mean the planet is one step away from World War III and said NATO military personnel were already present in Ukraine.
According to Nikolai Patrushev, NATO is an instrument in the service of the United States, which, according to him, wants to destroy Russia and rob the country of its natural resources. “The West viewed the collapse of the Soviet Union as just one phase of the confrontation with Russia,” he says.
“The weakening of our country as an economic and political competitor, and its removal from the world political map, are the long-term strategic goals of Washington, London and the other Western countries they control.”
LOOK. Putin: “One step away from World War III”
NATO expansion
NATO, which was founded in 1949 with twelve core members to guarantee Western security against the Soviet Union, now has 32 members. The Western military alliance expanded after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In 1999, NATO expanded to include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (from the former Warsaw Pact alliance) and in 2004 the Eastern European states of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined. Finland joined in 2023 and Sweden in 2024.
Also read:
Kremlin whisperer Nikolai Patrushev, “the man who drops poison in Putin’s ear” (+)
PORTRAIT. “Ukraine is a country of fascist pigs”: Dmitry Medvedev was the hope of the West, but became even worse than Putin (+)
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