Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, the day after the alliance summit in Vilnius, that Ukraine’s membership in NATO would exacerbate international tensions.
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“I am sure that it will not improve Ukraine’s security and will make the world in general much more vulnerable and lead to additional tensions on the international stage,” Putin told AFP on Russian television on the sidelines of a technology forum.
He added that “the threat of Ukraine’s membership” in NATO is precisely “one of the reasons” for the Russian military intervention in the country in February 2022.
The statement comes the day after the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, which offered Ukraine long-term military support but no prospect of near-term integration into the alliance.
Asked about the West’s promises to Kiev about new weapons, particularly long-range missiles, Vladimir Putin replied that these weapons “do harm, but that nothing significant happens in the combat zone when they are used.”
“The delivery of new weapons will only aggravate the situation and make it worse for the Ukrainian side, which will only further fuel the conflict,” added the Russian president.