LONDON, June 10. /TASS/. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte advised the bloc’s member countries to increase their defense expenditures to 5% or otherwise learn the Russian language amid what he called the growing threat from Russia.
"If you would not go to the 5%, including the 3.5% core defense spending, you could still have the National Health Service, or in other countries their health systems, the pension system, etcetera, but you had better learn to speak Russian," he responded to a reporter with The Daily Telegraph after delivering a speech at a London think tank.
In recent months, the North Atlantic Alliance and EU leaders have been repeating the "Russian threat" narrative, even as neither the NATO chief nor European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have explained why Moscow would need to attack NATO countries.
At a meeting with the global media leaders organized by TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) last summer, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed as absolute nonsense claims by the collective West about Russia’s alleged willingness to attack NATO countries.