Russia said Thursday that the United States and its European allies had forced Moscow to act on Ukraine. Blaming the West for the turmoil in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the U.S. was seeking complete military and political dominance. The United States has stopped respecting international laws and taking into account other countries’ interests, Shoigu added.
US trying to reshape the world to fit its needs
Sergei Shoigu was speaking at an annual security conference in Moscow. He said the U.S. and its allies were trying to bring Ukraine closer to the West. It was a major security threat to Russia, so Moscow was “forced to react.” Shoigu told the conference attendees that the U.S. had crossed “all the possible lines” to bring Ukraine into their orbit, reports Gabriela Baczynska of Reuters.
General Valery Gerasimov, head of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said at the same conference that the U.S. considered itself the winner of the Cold War. And now it is trying to reshape the world to fit its needs, violating international security laws. Last month, Russia had asked the U.S. to remove its nuclear weapons from Europe.
Kremlin accuses the U.S. of violating the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) by conducting nuclear training missions with its non-nuclear NATO allies. The NPT prohibits a nuclear-powered nation from transferring its nukes to non-nuclear states. On Thursday, Russian Defense Minister warned certain European countries against installing the U.S.-led missile defense shield.
Russia reminds West of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The U.S. is planning to install a missile defense shield in Romania and Poland. General Gerasimov said such installations would pose a direct threat to Moscow, and Russia will be forced to target them. In the past, the U.S. has said that its missile defense shield in Europe was aimed to deter potential attacks from Iran. Shoigu said Thursday that such “invented threats” were nothing but lies.
Russia also accused the U.S. of dragging Europe into a potential war by holding anti-Russia exercises and deploying nuclear weapons. Shoigu reminded the West of nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
