MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the West for the current tensions in Europe as he spoke to the Defense Ministry’s top generals on Tuesday.
"What’s happening now, the tensions that arose in Europe, that’s their fault," he said at a ministry meeting of top brass, referring to the West.
Since the 1990s and onward, Russia has had to respond to activities by the US and NATO, Putin said. "With every step, the situation steadily got worse, worse and worse," he noted. "It deteriorated more and more."
It’s now come to the point when Russia has to respond again out of concern about NATO getting too close to its borders, the president said. "How can it be unclear to someone?" he added. "It has to be clear."
NATO’s decision to expand eastward was a miscalculation driven in part by a sense of euphoria after winning the Cold War, Putin said. "Sometimes you wonder why they did it under those circumstances. It’s unclear," he pointed out. "I think the reason was euphoria from the victory in the so-called Cold War or the so-called victory in the Cold War."
"And due to a wrongful, erroneous assessment of the situation at the time and an incompetent, inaccurate analysis of potential further developments," he went on to say. "There simply couldn’t have been any other reasons.".