Russia Cannot Have NATO Creeping Into Ukraine Anymore - Peskov

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th January, 2022) Russia cannot put up with NATO gradually making its way into the Ukrainian territory anymore, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN.

"We have seen the gradual invasion of NATO into the Ukrainian territory with its infrastructure, with its instructors, with supplies of defensive and offensive weapons, teaching the Ukrainian military and so forth. That brought us to the red line, a situation where we couldn't tolerate it anymore," he said.

This threat to the Russian national security and European stability prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to propose security guarantees to NATO that would push its infrastructure back to the pre-1997 borders and preclude Ukraine from joining the bloc.

Peskov said the emphasis was on putting the guarantees on paper because oral promises did not stop NATO from moving into the post-Soviet space.

"When Germany was reunited and when the then-Soviet Union and the Soviet Union leader, Mr. Gorbachev, said OK to that, there was a promise by the American side. Unfortunately, not fixed in a legally binding guarantee document. But there was a guarantee that NATO would never expand its military infrastructure or political infrastructure eastwards," he said.