Vladimir Putin denounces NATO's “imperial ambitions” | War in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday denounced the “imperial ambitions” of NATO, which he said seeks to assert its “hegemony” through the Ukrainian conflict.
The call for Ukraine to continue fighting and refuse negotiations only confirms our assumption that Ukraine and the good of the Ukrainian people is not. objective of the West and NATO, but a means of defending their own interests, Putin said at a press conference in Ashkhabad, the Turkmen capital.
The leading countries of NATO want […] to assert their hegemony, their imperial ambitions, he charged.
The Atlantic Alliance and above all the United States had long needed to have an external enemy around which they could unite their allies, according to Vladimir Putin.
L& #x27;Iran was no good for this, he felt.
We gave them this chance, the chance to bring everyone around x27; them, quipped Mr. Putin.
Regarding the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, Mr. Putin assured that his country saw no no problem.
We don't have problems with Sweden and Finland, as we have with Ukraine, he said.
We have no territorial disputes […], there is nothing that could bother us from the point of view of Sweden joining and from Finland to NATO, assured the master of the Kremlin.
However, Vladimir Putin warned that in the event of the deployment of military contingents and military infrastructure there, we will be forced to respond symmetrically and create the same threats for the territories from which the threats to us.
The membership process for Sweden and Finland was officially launched on Wednesday at the NATO summit in Madrid.
In addition, returning to military operations on the Ukrainian ground, the Russian president on Wednesday rejected the responsibility of the Russian army in the strike which killed at least 18 people according to kyiv in a crowded shopping center in Kremenchuk, Ukraine .
Our army does not hit any civilian infrastructure sites. We have every possibility of knowing where what is, assured Mr. Putin.
With us, nobody shoots just like that, at random. Normally, this is done based on intelligence data on targets and with high-precision weapons, he continued.
Ukraine has accused the Russia for striking and destroying a shopping center in Kremenchuk, 330 kilometers southeast of kyiv, on Monday, killing at least 18 people and missing.
The next day, the Russian army denied having targeted a civilian installation, claiming to have bombed a nearby arms depot and that the commercial center was not in activity at the time.
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