NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted late last month that the alliance is not ready to provide security frameworks for Kiev in relation to its potential accession to the organization amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
This followed veteran US politician and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger claiming in an interview with a UK magazine that Ukraine should “get into NATO” allegedly for "the safety of Europe."
“I think it's typical of the ludicrous ideas that Henry Kissinger routinely comes up with. Age has not brought him wisdom, I'm afraid to say,” Horne said.
He underscored that the idea that Kiev would join NATO “was a red line for Moscow” and that “in some ways, that prospect helped to instigate the [Russian] special military operation in [Ukraine], along with [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky going on about how his country might want to become a nuclear power as well.”
Horne added that, “there have been some very disturbing developments” that the US professor said make the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO “even more ominous.”
“I'm referring to the fact that just a few days ago […] you had neo-Nazis from Ukrainian soil invading Russian territory with US military material. If that is not sufficiently ominous and dangerous for you, consider the other aspect of what Mr. Kissinger was referring to. That is to say, Ukraine being so well-armed,” the US political scientists stressed, in an apparent reference to Western countries’ ongoing arms supplies to Kiev.
The remarks come after Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated on Thursday that Russian troops, along with Federal Security Service (FSB) units, repelled three attempts by Ukrainian militants to invade Russia’s Belgorod region near the town of Shebekino and stage a terrorist attack against civilians there.
According to the MoD, warplanes from Russia’s Western Military District staged 11 airstrikes on Ukraine, which came as rocket troops and artillery carried out 77 missions supported by heavy flamethrower strikes. More than 30 Ukrainian terrorists were killed in Russia’s retaliatory strikes, which also destroyed four armored combat vehicles, a Grad multiple launch rocket system, and a pickup truck in the border area, the MoD added.
The US and its NATO allies ramped up their military assistance to Kiev shortly after Moscow launched its special military operation in Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin said aims to “protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.”
Moscow has repeatedly warned countries sending weapons to Ukraine that the Kremlin sees these military shipments as legitimate targets and that such deliveries only escalate the conflict. The Russian Foreign Ministry, in turn, stressed that NATO allies arming and training Ukrainians is tantamount to direct involvement in the standoff.
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