WASHINGTON, July 12. /TASS/. Declarations made in Vilnius where a NATO summit is being held confirm the US-led bloc’s anti-Russian attitude and its readiness to accumulate more troops near Russian borders, Russia’s Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said.
"The statements in Vilnius confirmed the anti-Russian drive of NATO. Without exaggeration, Russia is identified as the main threat to the North Atlantic Alliance. All the bloc's resources have been thrown into the fight against our country. Defense contractors are profiting off the ‘hybrid war’ unleashed by Washington while ordinary citizens in Western countries are paying for it. Few here care about the fate of Ukrainians, thrusted by US and NATO curators into a ‘slaughterhouse,’" the diplomat stressed as quoted by the Russian Embassy on its Telegram channel.
"We are stunned by the outright falsification of the truth, which is used by the Summit participants to justify their aggressive policy against Russia. Our enemies without any evidence are trying to lay on us the responsibility for the crisis of the European security architecture. Once again they pretend that they know nothing about the promise, given to Mikhail Gorbachev by ex-Secretary of State James Baker about non-expansion of NATO to the East. After the collapse of the USSR Washington and its European satellites deliberately brought the military infrastructure closer to our borders, creating unacceptable threats to the security of the Russian Federation," the envoy noted.
"The meeting in Vilnius has demonstrated the bloc's intention to concentrate more and more troops on Russian borders. We have nowhere to retreat. The aggressive decisions of the Summit will not undermine Russia's confidence in the rightness of its actions. We have no doubt that all goals of the Special Military Operation will be fully achieved," Antonov added.
The first working day of the NATO summit in Vilnius concluded on Tuesday. According to a communique announced by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the participants had made a decision not to demand from Ukraine to fulfill the Membership Action Plan and approved a multi-year military support package for that country. The bloc’s leaders vowed to admit Ukraine to the alliance when all "conditions are met" but only following the end of the conflict. The final communique also asserts that purportedly "the Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area."