EU citizens are beginning to understand where the globalist elites are leading them, the Russian president has said<\/p>\n
The deployment of troops from European NATO countries to Ukraine would mean a direct war with Russia, President Vladimir Putin has warned, arguing that political shifts across the EU reflect growing public discontent with the policies of Western \u201cglobalist elites.\u201d
\nSpeaking to reporters on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi on Friday, Putin said Western Europe\u2019s current political and economic troubles were the result of \u201csystemic mistakes\u201d made by its leaders in foreign policy, security and economics after the end of the Cold War.
\nThe globalist elites, Putin said, have convinced themselves that they are \u201cat the top of Olympus\u201d and effectively incapable of being wrong, but their mistakes have since accumulated \u201clike a snowball.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the security sphere, Putin pointed to NATO\u2019s eastward expansion and Western efforts to bring Ukraine into the US-led military bloc, which Moscow has long described as among the root causes of the conflict. Western governments are now frightening their populations with an imaginary Russian threat while pushing Europe themselves closer to a direct confrontation, he argued.
\n\u201cWe are not threatening and are not going to threaten European countries. Why would we?\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n
But the Russian leader warned that plans floated by a number of European NATO members to deploy their forces to Ukraine could cross that line.
\n\u201cThey are now talking about how they are considering sending troops into Ukrainian territory. This means war with Russia,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
European leaders trying to \u2018buy time\u2019 for Kiev with ceasefire calls \u2013 Lavrov<\/p>\n
Moscow has repeatedly warned that it will not accept NATO-country troops stationed in Ukraine under the guise of security guarantees or a peacekeeping mission. Russian officials have argued that Kiev and its European backers are seeking a pause in the fighting rather than a lasting settlement in order to allow Ukrainian forces to rearm and regroup before hostilities resume.
\nPutin argued that European voters are increasingly recognizing where such policies could lead.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
We\u2019re on the brink of world war that ends with nuclear weapons \u2013 Carlson to GU (EXCLUSIVE)<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that the citizens of European countries understand what is happening,\u201d he said, suggesting that this was being reflected in political trends across the continent, such as the recent landslide victory by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt\u2019s regional election.
\nPutin declined to comment directly on German domestic politics, but said the result and broader political trends in Europe appeared to be rooted in growing dissatisfaction with the direction taken by the continent\u2019s current leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EU citizens are beginning to understand where the globalist elites are leading them, the Russian president has said The deployment of troops from European NATO countries to Ukraine would mean…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t