Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged a \u201csignificant\u201d response to \u201cEurope\u2019s militarisation\u201d and says the hysteria around his country potentially attacking NATO is \u201cnonsense\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can\u2019t believe what they\u2019re saying, that Russia is going to attack NATO,\u201d he said on Thursday at a foreign policy forum in the southern resort city of Sochi. \u201cThey\u2019re either incredibly incompetent if they truly believe it because it\u2019s impossible to believe this nonsense, or they\u2019re simply dishonest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Putin expressed frustration over Europe\u2019s military build-up, noting that he is monitoring the trend, and warned that retaliatory measures would be swift.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Germany, for example, it is said that the German army should become the strongest in Europe. Very well. We hear that and are watching to see what is meant by it,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussia will never show weakness or indecisiveness,\u201d Putin added. \u201cWe simply cannot ignore what is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Relations between Russia and the European Union have spiralled downwards since Moscow\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, leading the bloc to bolster its defence.<\/p>\n
Drones flying over Denmark and aerial incursions from Moscow in Estonia and Poland have heightened fears that Russia\u2019s war could spill over Ukraine\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian officials and some NATO allies have claimed that Russia\u2019s incursions into other countries\u2019 airspace are deliberate. But Moscow has denied the allegations and said European powers are levying baseless accusations.<\/p>\n
He accused Europe of stoking \u201chysteria\u201d to justify rising military spending and said Russia wasn\u2019t a threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust calm down,\u201d the Russian president said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Trump is a person who can listen\u2019<\/p>\n
He said European countries, through their policy of \u201cconstant escalation\u201d, are responsible for the failure to achieve peace in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll NATO countries are fighting us, and they\u2019re no longer hiding it,\u201d he said, adding that they are \u201cactually taking part in combat operations\u201d through a centre that transmits intelligence and supplies weapons.<\/p>\n
In his remarks on Thursday, Putin also lauded United States President Donald Trump, saying the two of them had discussed a settlement to the war in Ukraine and the restoration of ties between their countries during the Alaska summit in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump is a person who can listen,\u201d Putin said. The US president has been trying to bring an end to the war in Ukraine since he returned to office in January.<\/p>\n
Moscow has so far shown no willingness to compromise in negotiations with Ukraine and continues to insist on its demands, including that Kyiv renounce NATO membership and abandon territory.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Putin warned Ukraine that it was playing a dangerous game by striking the area near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and suggested Moscow could retaliate against nuclear plants controlled by Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The nuclear power plant, Europe\u2019s largest, has been cut off from external power for more than a week and is being cooled by emergency diesel generators. Both Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for cutting off the external power and for shelling the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey still have functional nuclear power plants on their side. What prevents us from responding in kind? Let them think about this,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n
He said it was idiotic to blame Russia for shelling a nuclear power station that it controlled and said the situation around the plant was on the whole \u201cunder control\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged a \u201csignificant\u201d response to \u201cEurope\u2019s militarisation\u201d and says the hysteria around his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699,2821,12,332,7661,657,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-469821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-nato","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-russia","15":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","16":"tag-ukraine","17":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115307572336193780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}