“Dangerous and provocative”: Russia reacts angrily to statements by Jens Stoltenberg. It's about missile strikes and red lines.
The Kremlin has sharply criticized NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's position on missile strikes deep inside Russia. “This ostentatious willingness not to take the Russian president's statements seriously is a short-sighted and unprofessional step,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian agencies. Such a stance is “deeply provocative and dangerous,” he warned.
In his opinion, Stoltenberg's comments were also due to his imminent departure as Secretary General of the Western military alliance, Peskov replied. After all, as of October 1, the Norwegian would no longer bear any responsibility for the consequences of such a dispute.
Stoltenberg had previously told the British daily newspaper “The Times” that the use of longer-range missiles would not draw NATO into the conflict with Russia.
“It is wrong to say that NATO allies would be drawn into the conflict if they allowed the weapons to be used against legitimate targets on Russian territory,” said the Norwegian. “North Korea and Iran provide significant military support and provide Russia with missiles and drones without being directly involved in the conflict.”
The NATO Secretary General stressed that there had already been many red lines that Russian President Vladimir Putin had drawn and that he had not allowed to escalate. “He did not do that because he knows that NATO is the strongest military alliance in the world,” said Stoltenberg.
Last week, Putin threatened the West in the debate about releasing long-range weapons to Ukraine. The Kremlin chief said that the use of long-range Western precision weapons against targets deep in Russian territory should be viewed as NATO's participation in the war. “That will mean that NATO countries, the USA, and European countries will fight with Russia,” the Kremlin chief said in response to a question from a journalist on state television in St. Petersburg. The Russian UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzia referred to Russia's nuclear weapons in the United Nations Security Council.
For two and a half years, Ukraine has been fighting a defensive battle against a large-scale Russian invasion and has received massive support from the West. So far, however, the USA and other Western states have refused to comply with Kiev's demand to authorize their weapons for strikes deep into Russian territory. The Ukrainian leadership justifies this demand by saying that Russian bombers and fighter jets take off from there and regularly carry out devastating attacks on Ukrainian territory, including attacking civilian targets.
