In the second part of Oliver Stone’s Showtime series ‘The Putin Interviews’ aired on Tuesday night, the Russian president called NATO’s activities at Russia’s doorstep hostile and a major security challenge, adding that Moscow would not stand idly by.
“There are two threats here for us, for Russia. The first is the deployment of missile interceptors in the immediate vicinity of our borders in eastern European countries, and the second threat is that anti-missile launch pads could be converted into launch pads for attack missiles,” Putin told Stone.
Putin noted that NATO shows no signs of slowing down, with plans to install missile defense launch pads on warships deployed to seas bordering Russia, and in Alaska.
The rampant military activity at its border is “another big, glaring mistake” made by the US, as it drags both countries into a new arms race, Putin said. NATO’s saber-rattling leaves Russia no other choice than to “give a suitable response to all of these actions,” he said, noting that Moscow’s countermeasures will be “much cheaper,” if not quite as technologically advanced.
“It may be [rough]… but it will be effective. We shall preserve this so-called strategic balance.”
In a preview aired ahead of the launch on Monday, Putin cautioned against an all-out war, pointing out that in a hot war between the US and Russia, both will end up on the losing side, as hardy anyone will survive.
Putin argued that past claims by the US government that by pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (AMB), it was seeking to contain Iran, have proved to be unsubstantiated, since the nuclear deal between Iran, the US, and five world powers is still in effect, while the development of NATO’s missile program does not seem to slow down.