ST. PETERSBURG (Sputnik) — Moscow cannot help but be concerned about NATO expansion toward the Russian borders as well as about US calls to increase military budgets of Alliance members, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
"We have seen so far the development of [NATO] military infrastructure and the approach of this infrastructure to our borders, this can not but concern us. We have talked about this many times publicly," Putin said.
Trump publicly criticized the European NATO members at the Brussels meeting last week for not carrying their share of the alliance's military and financial burdens.
The issue of the contributions to the alliance has been raised repeatedly by the new US administration, insisting on all countries honoring their NATO budget responsibilities. The target of spending 2 percent of the GDP mandated by NATO was adopted at the Alliance's September 2014 Summit in Wales, with only five countries, including the United States, meeting the required standard, according to NATO figures.
"The United States demands that its [NATO] allies increase their military spending and, at the same time, simultaneously says that NATO does not intend to attack anyone. But if you do not intend to attack anyone, why increase military spending? Of course, this raises additional questions for us," Putin stressed.
NATO has always been and remains the instrument of foreign policy of the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"…no matter what they say, it is an instrument of the foreign policy of the United States. And if someone likes it, then so it is good, but the main thing is to make real the processes, which have always been promoted by NATO, namely, the transformation of this bloc into a rather political organization, as an organization that creates essential elements of stability in the world, and if it happens, then probably it would be not bad," Putin stressed.
The lack of coordination mechanisms between Russia and NATO is regrettable as it does not allow to resolve problems as they arise, Vladimir Putin underlined.
"We have made attempts to establish a constructive dialogue with this organization. We have even at one point established the NATO-Russia Council in Rome, but everything has becom extinct, and is not actually working, and this was neither our initiative nor our fault. The lack of such instruments is bad, because it prevents us from constructive work on quashing the issues of the actual agenda," Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
SPIEF, a major global platform for communication between business representatives and discussion of crucial economic issues, kicked off in Russia’s St. Petersburg on Thursday and will continue through Saturday. Sputnik News Agency is the official media partner of the forum.
