Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday the U.S. and its allies, not the Kremlin, are to blame for rising tensions in Europe that have revived talk of war.
The Russian leader’s remarks to a gathering of top defense officials in Moscow was just the latest rhetorical escalation and clashes with Washington and its NATO allies over Ukraine and other Central and Eastern European countries along Russia‘s western border.
NATO leaders say Russia‘s build-up of troops along the restive Ukrainian border and its demands for security guarantees against future NATO expansion have led to the sharpest deterioration in relations since the end of the Cold War.
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Mr. Putin clearly doesn’t see it that way.
“What is happening now, tensions that are building up in Europe, is [the U.S. and NATO‘s] fault every step of the way,” Mr. Putin said. “Russia has been forced to respond at every step.”
In the Russian president’s analysis, NATO has been engaged in a provocative policy disregarding Russia‘s interests virtually since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, expanding eastward and accepting new members along Russia‘s border from the Baltics to the Black Sea.
The U.S. and its allies also have refused Mr. Putin‘s demand to rule out NATO membership in the future for Ukraine and Georgia and have helped both militarily in the face of intimidation by Moscow.
But Russian officials say they have been forced to draw a line in the sand in the face of repeated provocations in Russia‘s strategic backyard.
“What they are now trying to do and plan to do in Ukraine’s territory, it’s not thousands of kilometers away, it’s happening right at the doorstep of our house,” Mr. Putin said Tuesday.
Ukrainian officials are warning that the Kremlin is trying to lay the groundwork to justify a military invasion, with a major troop buildup on the border and strong words of support for a pro-Russia Ukrainian separatist movement battling the government in Kyiv.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu charged that more than 120 employees of unnamed private U.S. military companies are training troops and providing tactical advice in eastern Ukraine to forces fighting the separatists.
Russia last week presented broad demands for security guarantees in Europe that NATO and Biden administration officials were quick to reject. But both sides still say they hope direct talks can avert the threat of a shooting war.
Despite his tough talk, Mr. Putin also told the Russian defense gathering, “Armed conflicts, bloodshed is not our choice, and we don’t want such developments. We want to resolve issues by political and diplomatic means.”