The Russian president warns of the possibilities of a military operation for control of Crimea
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Tuesday that Ukraine ‘s entry into NATO could lead to a war between Russia and the Atlantic Alliance for control of the Crimean peninsula.
“Let’s imagine that Ukraine, as a NATO country, starts this military operation (for control of Crimea). What do we do? Do we fight with NATO? Has anyone thought of that? It seems not,” Putin said during the joint press conference in the Kremlin with the Prime Minister of Hungary, Víktor Orbán .
Putin, who ordered the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014, recalled that Ukraine’s military doctrine includes “recovering Crimea, including by military means.”
“It is not something that they say in public , it is that it is written in their documents,” he said.
He called for the possibility of Kiev launching a military operation against Crimea and Donbas once NATO deploys modern offensive weapons on its territory, as it has already done in Poland and Romania.
And he recalled that the Kremlin considers the issue of Crimea “closed”, a territory bathed by the Black Sea that Moscow describes as its “sovereign territory”.
He stressed that NATO’s open door policy is not written anywhere.
” Where did it come from? Where is it written? Nowhere,” he denounced.
Putin recalled that in article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty creating NATO, it is written that the Alliance can accept other European countries with the approval of all its members.
“It can, but it is not obliged. Both the US and NATO can say, including Ukraine, that we want to guarantee your security, we value it. We respect your aspiration, but we cannot accept you, since we have other international obligations,” he specified.
Putin wondered: ” What does Ukraine not understand or bother about?”
“We must find a way to ensure the security and interests of all participants in this process, from Ukraine to European countries and Russia. But this is only possible through a serious and balanced analysis of the proposals included in our documents . “, he pointed.
He accused the US not so much of worrying about the security of the neighboring country, but of using Ukraine as an ” instrument ” to “contain the development of Russia”.
“Drag us into an armed conflict and impose the toughest sanctions with the help of your allies in Europe. Or drag Ukraine into NATO, place offensive weapons there and encourage the ultra-nationalists to settle the Donbas and Crimea issue militarily, in a way that would also push us into an armed conflict,” he said.
Putin stressed that “if one wants to avoid such a negative development of events – and we want to do it – one must really take into account the interests of all countries, including Russia, and find a variant for the solution of this problem.”
He again accused Western leaders of reneging on their promise not to expand NATO “one inch” into Eastern Europe.