SEB STARCEVIC - POLITICO
Russia has no plans to invade the rest of Europe, President Vladimir Putin said late Wednesday, despite numerous warnings to NATO by Russian officials and Putin's own musings about nuclear war.
As the Kremlin’s all-out conflict in Ukraine enters its third year, Putin vigorously rejected speculation that Russia could attack other countries in Eastern Europe next.
“This is complete nonsense — the possibility of an attack on some other countries, on Poland, the Baltic states, the Czechs are scared. It's just nonsense,” he said, adding that Russia has “no aggressive intentions toward these states.”
Several top European military officials have over the past few months raised the alarm that an increasingly belligerent Kremlin could order an attack on a NATO country within the next few years.
Putin made the comments at a meeting of military pilots in Tver Oblast, northwest of Moscow. A transcript of the conversation was released by the Kremlin and published by state media on Thursday.
In the months and weeks leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s foreign ministry and other officials repeatedly denied Moscow had any plans to attack its neighbor.
In a familiar narrative, Putin this week also accused NATO of provoking Russia by expanding eastward. "Were we moving toward the borders of those countries that were part of the NATO bloc? We didn't touch anyone! They were moving toward us,” he said.
“Did we cross the ocean to the borders of the United States? No,” he added. Putin has pointed to NATO's expansion in recent decades to excuse waging war in neighboring Ukraine.
Finland and Sweden have also joined the transatlantic military alliance, after security fears were sparked in Helsinki and Stockholm by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly issued threats and used revanchist rhetoric about its neighbors. In December last year, one of Russia’s top diplomats vowed Finland would be “the first to suffer” if war broke out with NATO.
Meanwhile, outspoken Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, who is also Russia’s former prime minister and president, referred to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as "our Baltic provinces" and said Poland was "temporarily occupied” in a post on social media in May last year.
