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Top diplomat explains how Russia sees its military-technical response to security threats

"Military-technical measures imply the deployment of military hardware," Sergey Lavrov said

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has explained what Russia means by saying that it may take military-technical measures in case of a real security threat.

"Military-technical measures imply the deployment of military hardware, it is obvious. And when we make decisions about these or those steps, we always know what we mean and what we are getting prepared for," he told a news conference on the results of the Russian foreign ministry’s activities in 2021 on Friday.

The minister recalled that drills have recently been conducted in Russia’s western regions. "Now, a snap check has kicked off at our country’s eastern borders. These are our domestic affairs, our decisions. And, naturally, when hardware and manpower are pulled to our borders, and, notably, these are not the forces of those countries where it is taking place, but the Americans are deploying tens of thousands of their troops and the Britons are deploying hundreds, thousands of items of military hardware, we want to know what these vehicles are going to do in the Baltic countries, in Poland, in other countries, which can resolve problems on Russia’s territory by means of certain types of weapons," Lavrov stressed.

The Russian top diplomat warned against trying to find "any hidden meaning" in this respect. "We have always been only responding to threats to Russia’s security," he added.

Russian-US and Russian-NATO talks on security guarantees were held earlier this week. On Monday, Geneva hosted Russian-US consultations on these matters. On Thursday, a Russia-NATO Council meeting was held in Brussels, and a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council was held in Vienna on Thursday.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said earlier that Russia has "a set of military-technical measures" that would be used in case of a real threat to the country’s security.