Reuters, Moscow :Russia accused NATO on Wednesday of encroaching on its borders and seeking to change the strategic balance of power, forcing Moscow to take steps to protect its interests and security.The comments by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov came a day after Russia and the West accused one another of endangering global security, adding to tensions over the conflict in Ukraine, in which pro-Russian separatists have seized land in the east after Moscow annexed Crimea from Kiev in early 2014.”It’s not Russia that’s approaching someone’s borders. It’s NATO’s military infrastructure that is approaching the borders of Russia,” Peskov told reporters.”All this … forces Russia to take measures to safeguard its own interests, its own security.”Peskov said the West had increasingly resorted to “unconstructive and confrontational” Cold War-style rhetoric and that Russia had never wanted strife.President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy adviser also said on Wednesday that Russia would not be dragged into an arms race with the West as this would hurt the economy.”Russia is not entering an arms race. Russia is trying to react in some ways to certain threats but nothing more than that. We are not entering any arms race because that would hurt our capabilities in the economic sphere,” Yuri Ushakov said.Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia would have to defend itself if threatened, adding that NATO is “coming to its borders”.”If someone puts some of our territories under threat, that means we will have to direct our armed forces and modern strike power at those territories, from where the threat emanates,” Putin said at a meeting outside Moscow with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto.”As soon as some threat comes from an adjoining state, Russia must react appropriately and carry out its defence policy in such a way as to neutralise a threat against it,” Putin added.”It’s NATO that is coming to our borders and not us moving somewhere,” the Russian president said, after being asked about Moscow and NATO both boosting their firepower in the region.But he added that observers should not “blow anything out of proportion” with regard to the perceived threat from NATO.”Of course we will analyse everything, follow this carefully. So far I don’t see anything that would force us to worry especially,” Putin said.”It’s all more political signals aimed towards Russia or its allies.”Putin said earlier Tuesday that Russia will boost its nuclear arsenal by more than 40 intercontinental missiles this year, in a move slammed as “sabre-rattling” by NATO.
