Russian President Vladimir Putin has assured in statements to public television that his country has “no geopolitical, economic, or military interest” in fighting with NATO countries.
“All of NATO cannot fail to understand that Russia has no motive, no interest, neither geopolitical, nor economic, nor political, nor military in fighting with NATO countries,” he said in statements to the Moscow program. Kremlin. Putin.
Putin stressed that this includes the United States, which he called “the sole owner of NATO,” since said military bloc is “his backyard.”
“We do not have any territorial disputes with them nor do we harbor a desire to spoil relations with them,” he stressed, statements that were posted on Telegram by Pável Zarubin, host of the program.
He stressed that the Kremlin is interested “in developing relations” with those countries, which have supported Ukraine from the beginning in its war with Russia.
In turn, he called US President Joe Biden’s accusations that Russia was preparing to attack the Atlantic Alliance as “sovereign nonsense.” “I think President Biden also understands it, that he is just a rhetorical figure to justify his erratic policy toward Russia,” he said.
Looking back, Putin accused the West of seeking the disintegration of the Russian Federation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, since no one needs such a large country, with so many natural resources.
In this way, Russia “will have neither weight nor voice and will not be able to defend its national interests as the united Russian State does,” he asserted.
“They will have to find meeting points with us, since they will have to take us into account,” insisted the Russian leader, who assures that the world is changing and that the West is ceasing to be the only hegemonic power.
He also admitted having sinned from “naivety” in the first years of his mandate at the head of the Kremlin by thinking that the former enemies of the USSR would understand that Russia is another country, that the “ideological antagonism” had ended and that politics had to be renounced. of “confrontation.”
In addition, Putin warned Finland that, while before there were no problems in relations between the two countries, “now there will be” about joining NATO. “There were no problems. Now, there will be. We will create the Leningrad (northwest) military district and concentrate certain military units there. Why did they need it? It’s just nonsense,” he said.
He remembers that all territorial disputes between both countries were resolved in the mid-20th century, which is why he regretted that “Finland was dragged into NATO.” “We had very good and cordial relations,” he insisted.
Moscow intends to reinforce its northwestern flank, especially the region surrounding the country’s second city, St. Petersburg, which is located just about 300 kilometers from the Finnish capital, Helsinki.
Experts consider that Finnish entry into the Atlantic Alliance is one of Putin’s biggest miscalculations when launching his military campaign in Ukraine in February 2022.
This week the Kremlin already warned that the deployment of US troops in Finnish territory will be an obvious threat to Russia.
Finland and the United States reached a defense cooperation agreement (DCA) that will allow US troops to use 15 military bases in the Nordic country, the Finnish Government reported this Thursday.
Putin, who has been in power since 2000 and will receive support from the Kremlin party on Sunday for his candidacy for re-election in the 2024 presidential elections, assured this week in his first major press conference of the war that there will be no peace in Ukraine until Russia achieves the objectives it set for itself in February 2022.