Western nations have supported separatism and terrorism as long as it is directed against Russia, the president has said

Russia will no longer play "one-sided" games with the West, President Vladimir Putin has told journalists on the sidelines of the summit of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in Minsk. Western nations have repeatedly betrayed Russia by not fulfilling their promises related to NATO expansion and resolving the Ukraine conflict, he stated at a press conference on Friday.

NATO is currently justifying its planned defense spending hike to 5% of its members' GDP and military buildup in Europe by pointing to Russia's "aggressiveness," Putin said, adding that the bloc's members are "turning everything upside down" when they make statements such as these.

"No one is saying a word about how we've come up to the Russian special military operation," the president said, adding that the roots of the Ukraine conflict go back decades when Moscow was "blatantly lied to" about NATO expansion. "What followed was one expansion wave after another," he stated.

Russia's security concerns about the bloc's activities have been consistently ignored and met with silence, according to Putin. "Isn't it aggressive behavior? That is precisely aggressive behavior, which the West does not want to pay attention to."

According to the president, Western nations have supported separatism and even terrorism as long as it is directed against Russia. Terrorist groups were outright ignored if they acted on Russian territory, he claimed. "Everything was good as long as it was against Russia. Haven't we seen this? They [the West] saw it as well. Yet, they only talk about our aggressiveness."

The president's words came just days after the NATO summit in The Hague, where the bloc's members made a commitment to hike defense spending to 5% of GDP annually by 2035. The decision was made "in the face of profound security threats and challenges, in particular the long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security," the summit's statement said.

Russia has said it considers NATO expansion towards its borders to be a major national security threat, and cited Kiev's ambitions to join the US-led bloc among the key reasons that led to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.

(RT.com)