Russia: Vladimir Putin accuses US, NATO members of ignoring Moscow's security concerns

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Monday, accused the US and NATO of ignoring their "fundamental concerns" regarding the expansion of NATO near the Ukrainian border. According to a report by news agency Sputnik, the statement from Putin came during a press conference held after holding a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday. During the presser, Putin reiterated his demands regarding the prevention of further NATO expansion eastward and expressed his grave concern about the deployment of weapons systems near Russian borders.

"It is precisely these central concerns of ours that, unfortunately, turned out to be ignored in the responses received on January 26 from the United States and NATO. Moreover, Western partners once again referred to the fact that each state has the right to freely choose ways to ensure its security and enter into any military alliances and blocs," Sputnik quoted Putin as saying.

"We, in fact, have never argued with this. True, these unions and alliances themselves have no obligation to accept everyone who wants it. This is also an obvious thing," added Putin.

Further, the Russian President slammed the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and said, "The obligation of strengthening one's security should not hamper the security of other states." He added, "I would also like to note that they are still trying to reassure Russia with arguments that NATO is a peaceful and purely defensive organisation, a purely defensive alliance. Citizens of many states have seen from their own experience how true this is."
Notably, earlier last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that "Moscow does not want war but added it won’t allow its security interests to be overlooked." 

NATO deploys extra forces on standby

According to him, the slow response of the western countries has muddied the waters in many ways. It is worth mentioning that the tension between Russia and Ukraine soared tremendously over the US intelligence reports that claim Russian forces have reportedly made all preparations to "invade Ukraine". However, Russian President Vladimir Putin refuted the US intelligence reports and called the allegations "baseless" on multiple occasions. On January 24, NATO said that it’s putting in extra forces on standby and deploying more ships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe. According to the news agency, AP, the intergovernmental military alliance averred that it's beefing up its “deterrence” presence in the Baltic Sea area. As of now, Denmark said it has sent a frigate to the Baltic Sea and deployed F-16 warplanes to Lithuania while Spain informed it sent ships to join NATO’s standing maritime force and considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. However, France said it was ready to send troops to Bulgaria.

Image: Twitter/@KremlinRussia_E