Russia would pay a high price for any new military aggression against Ukraine, Nato and the US warned on Tuesday as the western military alliance met to discuss Moscow’s possible motives for massing troops near the Ukrainian border.
President Vladimir Putin countered that Russia would be forced to act if US-led Nato placed missiles in Ukraine that could strike Moscow within minutes.
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that now aspires to join the EU and Nato, has become the main flashpoint between Russia and the west as relations have soured to their worst level in the three decades since the Cold War ended.
“There will be a high price to pay for Russia if they once again use force against the independence of the nation Ukraine,” Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg told reporters.
“Any escalatory actions by Russia would be a great concern to the United States..., and any renewed aggression would trigger serious consequences.”
Tensions have been rising for weeks, with Russia, Ukraine and Nato all staging military exercises amid mutual recriminations over which side is the aggressor.
‘Red lines.’
Putin went further than previously in spelling out Russia’s “red lines” on Ukraine, saying it would have to respond if Nato deployed advanced missile systems on its neighbour’s soil.
“If some kind of strike systems appear on the territory of Ukraine, the flight time to Moscow will be 7-10 minutes, and five minutes in the case of a hypersonic weapon being deployed. Just imagine,” the Kremlin leader said.
“What are we to do in such a scenario? We will have to then create something similar in relation to those who threaten us in that way. And we can do that now,” he said, pointing to Russia’s recent testing of a hypersonic weapon he said could fly at nine times the speed of sound.
EU and other western leaders are involved in a geopolitical tug-of-war with Russia for influence in Ukraine and two other ex-Soviet republics, Moldova and Georgia.
Nato foreign ministers began two days of talks in the Latvian capital Riga to debate what they say is the growing Russian threat, with US secretary of state Antony Blinken to brief his 29 alliance counterparts on Washington’s intelligence assessment. “We will be consulting closely with Nato allies and partners in the days ahead...about whether there are other steps that we should take as an alliance.”
