Russia, St. Petersburg – June 19, 2025: Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, participates in a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the directors of international news agencies, organized within the International Economic Forum. Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev / Zuma Press / Profimedia
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that NATO is on the path of excessive militarization and that the US military alliance is determined to present Russia as a “demon in hell” to justify the commitment to significantly increase the defense expenses of the Member States, reports Reuters.
NATO leaders, who start a two -day meeting in the Netherlands in The Hague, said that Russia could attack a NATO state in the coming years, if it is not stopped to invade Ukraine.
Moscow denies any plane to attack NATO, but the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said it is “mostly unnecessary” to give the Alliance that this is not the case, because it is determined to “demonize” Russia.
“It is an alliance created for confrontation … It is not a tool for peace and stability,” he said, mentioning NATO's intention to undertake to spend 5% of GDP for defense, as asked by US President Donald Trump.
“The Alliance advances with confidence on the path of galloping militarization,” Peskov said. In order to impose the goal of 5%, NATO was forced to invent “a demonic threat,” added the spokesman of the Russian President.
“To do this, you have to draw a demon from hell, a monster. And from the point of view of these NATO officials, our country is most suitable for the role of the monster,” said the Kremlin representative.
NATO states that his vision of Russia is clear and is based on the evidence of the war that Moscow is carrying in Ukraine since February 2022.
This week's summit aims to convey to Putin that NATO is united, despite Trump's previous critics, and determined to expand and modernize his defense to discourage any attack from Moscow.
In a separate speech on Tuesday, the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, accused NATO of surpassing his traditional area of responsibility in trying to win a position in the Middle East, South Caucasus, Central Asia, Arctic and the Asia-Pacific region.
Lavrov said that relations between Russia and China are an “important stability factor” in the issue of Euro-Asian security.
