NATO troops in Ukraine would mean war with Russia – Putin
The deployment of troops from European NATO countries to Ukraine would mean a direct war with Russia, President Vladimir Putin has warned, arguing that political shifts across the EU reflect growing public discontent with the policies of Western “globalist elites.”
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi on Friday, Putin said Western Europe’s current political and economic troubles were the result of “systemic mistakes” made by its leaders in foreign policy, security and economics after the end of the Cold War.
The globalist elites, Putin said, have convinced themselves that they are “at the top of Olympus” and effectively incapable of being wrong, but their mistakes have since accumulated “like a snowball.”
In the security sphere, Putin pointed to NATO’s eastward expansion and Western efforts to bring Ukraine into the US-led military bloc, which Moscow has long described as among the root causes of the conflict. Western governments are now frightening their populations with an imaginary Russian threat while pushing Europe themselves closer to a direct confrontation, he argued.
“We are not threatening and are not going to threaten European countries. Why would we?” Putin said.
But the Russian leader warned that plans floated by a number of European NATO members to deploy their forces to Ukraine could cross that line.
“They are now talking about how they are considering sending troops into Ukrainian territory. This means war with Russia,” Putin said.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that it will not accept NATO-country troops stationed in Ukraine under the guise of security guarantees or a peacekeeping mission. Russian officials have argued that Kiev and its European backers are seeking a pause in the fighting rather than a lasting settlement in order to allow Ukrainian forces to rearm and regroup before hostilities resume.
Putin argued that European voters are increasingly recognizing where such policies could lead.
“I understand that the citizens of European countries understand what is happening,” he said, suggesting that this was being reflected in political trends across the continent, such as the recent landslide victory by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt’s regional election.
Putin declined to comment directly on German domestic politics, but said the result and broader political trends in Europe appeared to be rooted in growing dissatisfaction with the direction taken by the continent’s current leadership.
