NATO is already a belligerent party, helping to attack Russia, Putin’s man Patrushev said

“The North Atlantic Alliance has de facto become a party to the Ukrainian conflict, it actively participates in the organization of shelling of Russian territories by neo-Nazis,” said Patrushev.

He also said that decisions are being made at NATO to supply weapons with increasingly better technical capabilities or longer range, and that Alliance instructors in several countries are training “mercenaries and saboteurs” for their participation in anti-Russian operations.

The West and the North Atlantic Alliance consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unprovoked and stand by Ukraine. They support Kyiv financially and with supplies of humanitarian and military aid. However, Western representatives emphasize that they do not support Ukraine in using the supplied weapons against targets on Russian territory.

The secretary of the Russian Security Council also accused NATO and the US of striving to “preserve Ukraine or at least a part of it as an anti-Russian territory”, the sole purpose of which will be to fulfill the defense bloc’s interests.

“In this context, the goals regarding the demilitarization of Ukraine are still relevant,” said Patrushev. Russia has long justified its invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, by the need to “demilitarize and denazify” the neighboring country. The Russian invasion has already killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians and probably even more Ukrainian soldiers, and displaced millions of people.