MOSCOW, 14 January (BelTA) – The North Atlantic Alliance may start building up forces near the Russian borders under the pretext of the alleged Russia's imminent invasion of Ukraine in the coming months, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference for Russian and foreign journalists in Moscow on 14 January, BelTA has learned.
"The West has been making loud statements directing Russia on how it moves its troops on its own territory, which is absurd in itself, and if Russia does not comply with its demands the West will start building up rapid reaction forces, NATO special operations forces along our borders. We have reasons to believe that this is what will happen in the next two or three months," Sergey Lavrov noted.
The Russian foreign minister noted that NATO is actively utilizing the territories of its member states in military terms. "Our proposal is aimed at reducing military confrontation, de-escalating the general situation in Europe. The West is doing the exactly opposite: NATO is building up its ground forces, aviation in the territories that are directly adjacent to Ukraine. The scale, the number of exercises in the Black Sea has increased many times in recent years," he said.
Sergey Lavrov explained that Russia has put forward its proposals on security guarantees at this time because "the situation with the real configuration of weapons, military hardware and armed forces in Europe has changed."
