Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu accuses Western countries of seeking to expand the Ukraine conflict into the Asia-Pacific region. This was reported by the German news website n-tv.de.
According to the Russian news agency Tass, Shoigu made the comments during a speech at the three-day Xiangshan Forum for Military Diplomacy in China. He criticized NATO for increasing its troop presence in the Asia-Pacific region while hiding behind an apparent desire for dialogue. Shoigu claimed that NATO countries are driving an arms race in the region by increasing their military presence and the frequency and scale of military exercises. At the same time, he assured that Russia would not lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Shoigu stated that Russia’s termination of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty did not mean the end of the agreement.
These statements have not yet been independently verified and/or confirmed. For this reason, they should be viewed with caution. In war, it can be advantageous for parties to the conflict to deliberately spread false information to strengthen their own position or weaken that of the adversary.
Image: kremlin.ru, Совещание по развитию дальневосточных городов (2023-03-14) 02, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (image size modified)
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