The US persistence in pushing forward with NATO’s expansion eastward is leading to unpredictable consequences that could have been avoided, Cuba’s Foreign Ministry says.
“The American determination to continue the progressive expansion of NATO towards the borders of the Russian Federation has led to a scenario with implications of unpredictable scope that could have been avoided,” the ministry said on Saturday.
The ministry added that the recent US and NATO deployments close to the Russian borders and the delivery of weapons to Kiev amount to a “progressive military encirclement.”
The Cuban National Assembly earlier called on the United States to take Russia’s security proposals “seriously and realistically,” saying that Russia has the right to defend itself.
Russia submitted its security guarantee requests in December, asking for legal guarantees against further NATO expansion to the east, against Ukraine's membership in the alliance, and the deployment of NATO military bases in post-Soviet space. These guarantees were intended to serve as the basis for European security.
According to President Vladimir Putin, the proposals on European security were rejected offhand by Western partners, as NATO has been boosting defenses around Russia's borders despite a pledge given in the 1990s that the alliance would not “move an inch” eastward.
On Thursday, Russia announced a special military operation in Ukraine following the request of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics to defend them from Kiev's aggression. Donbas, a primarily Russian-speaking region, has been under pressure and regular attacks since 2014, when a right-wing nationalist government seized power in Kiev in a US-backed coup.
By shelling DPR and LPR and using prohibited weapons, Kiev has knowingly ignored the Minsk accords, which envisaged a ceasefire and granting special status to the DPR and LPR after holding elections there. In the same manner, Kiev's violations of the Minsk agreements have been ignored by Western leaders, while the shelling of Donbas received no coverage in the Western media for 8 years.
The unprecedented proximity of NATO forces, basically the encirclement of Russia, was cited as the main reason for the special operation, along with what Moscow called the "genocide" of the Russian-speaking population in Donbas.
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