Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday compared NATO’s eastward expansion to Adolf Hitler’s desire to occupy new territories in Eastern Europe, reports EFE.

“In essence, NATO’s reckless expansion reflects the same intentions that underpinned Hitler’s ‘Drang nach Osten’ (March to the East) policy,” Lavrov said at the 11th International Meeting of Senior Security Officials, organized by Russian security. council.

Lavrov said that the US deliberately destroyed the European security architecture, paying “special attention to the creation of unacceptable threats to Russia.”

“It is enough to recall the withdrawal of the United States from the Ballistic Missile Treaty more than 20 years ago, from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, from the Treaty on Open Skies,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in his speech on Wednesday. , which was broadcast on the public TV channel “Russia 24”, reports EFE and Agerpres.

Lavrov also accused the United States and its allies of turning the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) into a “marginal structure” in the field of European security and of having “for a long time embarked on the path of provocations, expanding NATO to the East “.

This, he emphasized, “contradicts the political promises to the Soviet leaders not to expand the alliance by a single centimeter, and also contradicts the commitments made at the highest level not to strengthen one’s own security at the expense of the security of others.” .”

The West does not hide its intentions to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, says Lavrov

According to Lavrov, the West revealed its “true intentions in December 2021, when it rejected Russia’s proposals to provide it with legally binding security guarantees”, in the sense that the Atlantic alliance should leave the countries that have joined NATO since 1997.

He also noted that currently the West does not hide its intentions to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia and for this purpose uses the “Kyiv regime, armed with NATO weapons.”

“At the same time, a part of the Western supplies (weapons) – and an increasingly large part – is spreading uncontrollably around the world,” Lavrov said.

The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry reiterated that the NATO allies “in fact and by law are directly participating in the conflict on the side of Kyiv”, warning that “such an irresponsible line significantly increases the threat of a direct military confrontation between nuclear states.”

Sergey Lavrov noted that Russia sends signals to Western capitals about the inadmissibility of such a scenario, “but these signals are ignored or distorted for propaganda purposes.”

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