NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has lashed out at Russia, saying that the country is “becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive,” and insisted that the alliance must improve its defensive capabilities in the face of Russia’s nuclear threat.
It seems that Stoltenberg ignored the fact that it was the West that forced Moscow to build up its nuclear capabilities in order to protect itself from NATO’s expansion and the US’s ambitions to create a global missile defense system.
Having briefly touched upon various matters, starting from cyberattacks and the alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK, Stoltenberg accused Russia of seeking to destabilize the West with new nuclear weapons.
"We can always do more and must reflect on that now. Salisbury follows, by all appearances, a pattern we've observed for some years — Russia is becoming more unpredictable and more aggressive," he said.
Meanwhile, the NATO Secretary-General has probably missed the point of President Vladimir Putin’s “Nobody wanted to listen to us. So listen now,” remark during his state-of-the-nation speech earlier this month. The head of state made it clear that Russia was forced to develop new generations of weapons following years of fruitless requests to stop expanding the military bloc and establishing military bases around the globe, thus jeopardizing Russia’s national security.
“As you can see, we made no secret of our plans and spoke openly about them, primarily to encourage our partners to hold talks. Let me repeat, this was in 2004,” Putin stressed, saying that despite Russia’s nuclear power status, “nobody really wanted to talk to us about the core of the problem, and nobody wanted to listen to us. So listen now.”
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