Top Russian official says US directs NATO spending

(Reuters) – The United States is imposing economic obligations on its NATO partners and setting conditions for purchasing specific weapons and equipment, a top Russian Security Council official said.

Nikolai Patrushev told the Argumenti i Facti news outlet that the Kremlin’s objectives in the more than two-year-long conflict in Ukraine remained the same as NATO continued pressure closer to Russia’s borders.

Patrushev said the United States and Britain were exploiting Russophobia “to bind other NATO states firmly to themselves through economic obligations.”

“The United States is profiting by increasing the capacity of the military-industrial complex and dictating to its allies the conditions for purchasing very specific types of weapons and uniforms from their manufacturers,” Patrushev told Argumenti i Facti in an interview published Tuesday. “

He said NATO’s defense spending has increased for the ninth consecutive year and is half of the world’s spending.

Patrushev cited as an example Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who agreed to boost defense spending and, as a result, was imposing tax increases.

Patrushev said, “She was obliged to go along with this act of political suicide because the coalition members would have to remain subject to ‘bloc’ discipline by increasing military spending.”

Kallas, a NATO member that was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and gained independence in 1991, last month asked other members of the alliance for defense as part of a “collective effort” to counter Russian actions. There was a request to increase the expenditure rapidly.

The Baltic states, Poland and other Eastern European countries have been the most vocal supporters of punitive action against Russia.

NATO countries, including the United States, say Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a simple land grab and overturns the inviolability of post-Soviet borders.

European nations “have long lost many elements of their sovereignty and are essentially limited to mere economic and political support for the alliance”, Patrushev said.

The notions of freedom and responsibility before their citizens were “subordinated to serving Washington’s purposes.”

NATO, Patrushev said, is “systematically increasing its military potential on our borders from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea” and conducting maneuvers closer to Russian territory.

He was quoted as saying, “The plan of the United States and NATO is to maintain Ukraine, or at least part of it, as a completely anti-Russian zone, working entirely in the interests of the North Atlantic bloc.” Used to be.”

“In this sense, the tasks of Ukraine’s demilitarization will remain the same.”

(Reporting by Ron Popsky; Editing by Stephen Coates)

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