Moscow on Monday condemned as “war rhetoric” the warning of German Minister Boris Pistoriusthat Russia could attack a member of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) in the near future. This was reported by the DPA agency, writes TASR.
“There are no supporters in Russia of any confrontation with NATO,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the state news agency TASS. He was reacting to an interview of the German minister with the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in which Pistorius stated that a Russian attack against a NATO country is conceivable in 2029.
“We hear more and more such militaristic and warlike rhetoric from European capitals,” Peskov said, stressing that Russia is taking steps to protect its own interests. Moscow repeatedly accuses NATO of arming itself for war against Russia, DPA wrote. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it is nonsense to claim that his country wants to attack a member of the Alliance. The statement of the German minister was also condemned by the Russian Department of Diplomacy, according to which it is the statement of an “aggressor”.
In an interview published on Saturday, Pistorius said some believed Russia could be ready to attack a NATO member as early as 2028, while some military historians thought peace in Ukraine was possible as late as last summer. The German minister added that NATO has a “significant deterrent potential” and pointed to the Alliance’s conventional and nuclear arsenal.
