Moscow sought security guarantees from the West before the Ukraine conflict, but was rebuffed, the foreign minister has said

NATO’s push to turn Ukraine into a foothold against Russia is a direct threat to national security, and left Moscow with no other choice other than to start the military operation against Kiev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

In an interview with the Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet published on Monday, Lavrov argued that NATO has long ceased to be a defensive bloc, citing its interventions in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya. “From whom were NATO countries defending themselves there? Who attacked them?” he said.

The US-led military bloc has also been expanding towards Russia’s borders for years while seeking to turn Ukraine into a “military foothold” to contain Russia. “The appearance of NATO bases in Ukraine and its involvement in the military alliance represents an immediate threat to our national security. Such a state of affairs would be unacceptable for us,” Lavrov stressed.

In 2021, weeks prior to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, Russia sought to address its concerns by requesting security guarantees from the US and NATO, hoping to preserve Ukraine’s non-aligned status. “Our initiative was rejected,” Lavrov said, adding that the West instead continued to “pump Ukraine with weapons to forcibly resolve the issues of Donbass and Crimea.”

In the end, we were left with no alternative but to launch the special military operation. I am sure that any self-respecting country would have done exactly the same in that situation.

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Source: RT