© Portal. FILE PHOTO. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg leaves the country after his press conference on the eve of a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. July 10, 2023. Portal/Yves Herman
July 11 (Portal) – The Kremlin on Tuesday accused NATO of treating Russia as an “enemy” and said it would closely monitor any decision made at the western military alliance’s two-day summit and respond with action. No further details Protect your own safety.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg earlier said he hoped the Vilnius leaders’ meeting would send a “positive signal” to Ukraine on its path to eventual NATO membership.
Moscow cited NATO’s eastward expansion as a key factor in its decision to invade Ukraine almost 17 months ago.
“Russia is perceived by them (the NATO leaders) as an enemy, as an adversary. Discussions (in Vilnius) will take place in this direction,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a regular press conference.
“We are following it very closely because much of what has been said will be the subject of in-depth analysis to take action to ensure our own safety,” he added.
For his part, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow was taking “reasonable” steps towards further NATO enlargement. He did not give any further details.
At a summit in the Lithuanian capital, NATO leaders are expected to adopt the alliance’s first comprehensive plans to repel any attacks from Moscow since the end of the Cold War.
Diplomats also said disagreements among the allies over Ukraine’s NATO entry are diminishing, although Kiev will not be invited to join as war continues to rage on its soil.
“VERY DANGEROUS”
“Potentially, this issue (Ukraine’s accession to NATO) is very dangerous for European security (…) and therefore those who will make the decision should be aware of it,” Peskov said.
He said European leaders did not seem to understand that moving NATO’s military infrastructure towards Russia’s borders was a mistake.
In numerous statements by senior Russian diplomats ahead of the Vilnius summit, Konstantin Gavrilov, a Vienna-based senior Russian security negotiator, accused the United States of fueling the conflict by supplying arms to Ukraine.
In an interview with Russia’s state-run RIA news agency, Gavrilov said Europe would be the first to suffer “catastrophic consequences” if the war escalated. He did not elaborate on the consequences of this.
Peskov said Sweden’s expected NATO membership would have “negative implications” for Russia’s security and that Moscow must respond. Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Helsinki formally joined the alliance in April.
Sweden will now become NATO’s 32nd member after Turkey withdrew its resistance on the eve of the summit.
Peskov downplayed Turkey’s decision, saying Ankara must live up to its obligations as a NATO member. He added that Russia will continue to expand ties with Turkey, which, unlike its NATO allies, has refused to impose economic sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine war.
(Reporting by Portal; Text by Gareth Jones; Adaptation in Spanish by Benjamín Mejías Valencia)