"Ignoring Russia’s legitimate rights to ensure its security, the White House persistently pursued the expansion of NATO, which it controls, to the east," Shoigu said at the 10th Beijing Xiangshan Forum.
"These aggressive steps forced us to take countermeasures. In response, the West openly took a course to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia in the hybrid war unleashed against us. Ukraine was cynically chosen as a battering ram, which is assigned the role of consumable material."
The defense minister went on to note that the policy of Western countries to escalate the conflict with Russia poses the threat of a direct military clash between nuclear powers,
"The West’s line of steady escalation of the conflict with Russia carries the threat of a direct military clash between nuclear powers, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences," he said at the forum.
Shoigu further noted that Russia's withdrawal of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty does not mean the destruction of this regime of military-strategic balance. "This is only a desire to ensure a balance with the United States, which has never ratified this treaty," he said.
Shifting gears, the Russian official noted that US military biological activities are gaining momentum, noting that Washington has deployed a network of laboratories in some countries of the Asia-Pacific region, including in Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and South Korea.
Shoigu added that similar US laboratories operated in Ukraine with the assistance of those European states "that today are seeking to join the ASEAN Plus mechanisms."