Russia is not planning to strike NATO member states or make incursions into their territories unless it is forced to do so, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.
“We cannot think about that and we do not think about that” unless it is “a reciprocal act, if they don’t make us do that,” Peskov said in an interview with the U.S. television channel PBS, when asked whether such a situation might occur.
Peskov described the buildup of NATO’s forces near Russia’s borders, as well as Ukraine’s possible accession to the alliance, as concerning, despite Russia’s numerous warnings that this caused its concerns. However, NATO continued to follow this course “with a smile on its face and gradually,” threatening Russia’s security, even before Russia started its special operation in Ukraine, he said.
[The] “NATO machine is not a machine of cooperation and is not a machine of security, it is a machine of confrontation,” he said.
Russia has found itself in a situation amounting to a war, considering the economy and global trade, and it has to adapt to this situation, he said.
“Those conditions are quite unfriendly and they are enemy-like for us […] We in Russia feel ourselves amongst a war,” Peskov said, adding that this is a result of the West’s actions that can well be described as a trade and economic war against Russia. Interfax