Russia will consider Ukraine’s accession to NATO a danger and will react “clearly and firmly enough,” the Kremlin warned on Monday on the eve of the Atlantic Alliance summit on Tuesday and Wednesday in Vilnius.
In the usual daily press conference, the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, stated that Russia’s position “is absolutely understandable and coherent” and that Ukraine’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) “will require [de Moscovo] a sufficiently understandable and firm answer”.
“It will also constitute an absolute threat to our country, which will require a clear and firm response from us,” he insisted, without specifying what kind of reaction Russia will have in that event.
According to Peskov, “quite intense discussions” are currently taking place between NATO member states, especially in the run-up to the summit, and there are different views “on Ukraine’s membership in the Atlantic Alliance.”
In this regard, he warned that Ukraine’s accession to NATO “will have extremely serious consequences for the entire security architecture in Europe, which is already in a state of disrepair.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly criticized NATO’s eastward expansion and accused Alliance members of participating in the conflict by supplying kyiv with weapons.
The Kremlin spokesman said that the Kiev regime “is trying in various ways to put pressure” on all member states of the organization “in order to obtain the greatest possible number of support and solidarity” to join the Atlantic Alliance.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, recognized that unanimity is not necessary to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance until the end of the war between the Russians and the Ukrainians, which began with the invasion of Russia, on February 24, 2022. .
Biden also said Ukraine is “not ready” to join NATO and must continue to make reforms.
With the prospect that the Vilnius summit will not produce the desired results, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has not yet revealed whether or not he will participate in the meeting in the Lithuanian capital.
“I don’t want to go to Vilnius to have fun,” said the Ukrainian leader, who demanded to know what decisions will be made during the summit to decide whether it is worth participating to influence what will be agreed on Ukraine.
In June, Zelensky had already declared that Ukraine’s presence at the summit is meaningless if NATO does not give it “some positive signal” in the sense kyiv is asking for.
Source: TSF
