NATO cannot put up with Russia’s increasing independence – Defense Minister Shoigu
The NATO bloc cannot stand Russia being an independent player in international politics and tries to prevent this by boosting its military presence in Eastern Europe, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has stated.
“NATO member countries make various attempts to prevent Russia from becoming their geopolitical competitor, even more so because we have allies. They use various organizations, including the international ones and many spheres of human activity like politics, economy and even culture and sports,” Shoigu said at the Tuesday session of the Defense Ministry’s collegium.
“In such conditions, we demonstrate openness, friendliness and the absence of any sort of aggression against foreign countries. This was convincingly demonstrated by the World Cup 2018 football championship that ended on July 15,” the Russian defense chief added.
Shoigu proceeded to say that Russian military forces worked together with police to provide maximum security in all 11 cities that hosted the World Cup games. “This included the anti-aircraft defense, engineering, radiation, chemical and biological reconnaissance, support in the anti-sabotage and search and rescue operations, monitoring of the radio and radiological situation on sports facilities and on transport routes,” Shoigu told the collegium.
According to the minister, 10,631 military servicemen and 2,186 units of weapons and hardware were used in the security operation during the championships, including 32 ships, 37 planes and 54 helicopters.
“Thanks to the measures that we had taken, not a single serious incident was registered during the championship and our guests will remember it as a grand sports festival that brought them a lot of positive emotions and a lot of new friends,” Shoigu stated.
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