NATO, US missile defense plans threaten Russian nuclear forces — chief of General Staff

MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. The United States’ prompt global strike concept and the deployment of a global missile defence system poses a threat to Russian strategic forces and to global security, the chief of Russia’s General Staff, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov, has said.

"Alongside the creation and deployment of strategic missile defence systems certain fears are aroused by the United States’ implementation of the prompt global strike concept.

"It is universally known that within that concept non-nuclear high accuracy attack weapons of a global range are being developed," Gerasimov told the 4th International Security Conference in Moscow.

Despite the considerable financial costs and technical problems research in that field is continuing. For that reason it should not be ruled out that non-nuclear global strike weapons will become a reality in the foreseeable future," Gerasimov said.

"In combination with the implementation of ballistic missile defence plans this may create a risk of upsetting the strategic nuclear balance, which still remains a safeguard of world stability," Gerasimov said.

These steps by the United States are solid reasons for Russia to take proportionate retaliatory measures, he warned.

NATO seeks to create hotbeds of tension on Russian borders

"As they seek to ‘put Russia in its place,’ Washington and its NATO partners show increasingly obvious interest in creating crisis situations in the regions bordering on the Russian Federation," he said at the 4th Moscow conference on international security.

For this purpose, the tactic of color revolutions is used, the chief of the Russian General Staff said.

"The technology of these revolutions has become standard - manipulating outside with the population’s protest potential, using the information space combined with political, economic, humanitarian and other non-military measures," he said.

The scenarios of state coups in the form of color revolutions in the post-Soviet space were successfully implemented in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldavia, he said.

"As a result, basically pro-Western and anti-Russian forces were brought to power," the general said.

Gerasimov said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization seeks to create new hotbeds of instability near Russian borders.

He recalled that the admission of new members to the alliance was continuing non-stop.

"Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are considered as the most likely aspirants. Also, the alliance keeps speculating about the prospects of Georgia’s and Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration," Gerasimov said.

"It is characteristic that almost all new members of the alliance are former members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization or post-Soviet republics. In other words, since the 1990s NATO’s expansion has proceeded strictly to the east, towards Russia’s borders," Gerasimov told the 4th International Security Conference in Moscow on Thursday.

"We are being told that the development of the North Atlantic Alliance is being carried out exclusively for defensive purposes and that it is not aimed against Russia. In the meantime, universally-known facts point to the opposite. Since 1999 the number of the alliance’s members has grown by twelve, while throughout the Cold War period only four new members were admitted," Gerasimov said.

"Even regardless the political aspect of the NATO leadership’s policies the analysis of the situation entirely from the strategic viewpoint cannot but identify the negative influences of the emerging situation on Russia’s military security," he said.

According to Gerasimov, the Russian Defense Ministry has recorded intensification of NATO military activity near Russia’s borders.

"Compared to 2013 [in 2014] the number of cases of NATO non-Black Sea states’ ships entering the Black Sea area has increased four times, the number of tactical and reconnaissance aircraft flights near the Russian borders has increased two times, and flights of early radar warning planes - nine times," he said.

"Since the start of 2014, the number of NATO operations has drastically increased," Gerasimov said.

According to the Russian General Staff Chief, the number of NATO exercises last year increased practically 1.8 times, compared to 2013.

The total number of military personnel of NATO countries has exceeded 3.7 million.

"The number of joint armed forces of NATO reaches 1.7 million people, and the overall number of regular armed forces of the alliance has exceeded 3.7 million people," Gerasimov said.