NATO shivers as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says: High time to rearm, Moscow’s military upgrade long overdue

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Lavrov: High time to rearm, Moscow’s military upgrade long overdue

Russia’s investment in its military is not a sign of a looming new arms race but rather a long-overdue modernization, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with RT and the VGTRK media corporation.

“I don’t think we are on the verge of a new arms race. At least, Russia definitely won’t be part of it,” the minister said. “In our case, it’s just that the time has come for us to modernize our nuclear and conventional arsenals.”

Lavrov was commenting on the US plan to overhaul its nuclear arsenals, which was announced by President Barack Obama this week.

“The US nuclear arsenal is somewhat younger than ours, but perhaps it is also time for them to upgrade it. I just hope that the US will abide by the provisions of the New START treaty, which are legally binding,” Lavrov said. “It is fine to upgrade your stockpile, replacing old weapons with new ones, but there are certain restrictions on how many weapons you can have, and all these restrictions are still in place.”

Read the full version of the interview

Moscow needs a strong defensive force because it sees hostile actions by NATO, an organization rooted in the past that never ceased to see Russia as an enemy, Lavrov said.

“Look how quickly NATO switched to confrontation over the Ukraine crisis and started hurling serious, yet completely unfounded, and biased accusations at us. They immediately terminated all of our cooperation programs, including the ones that served their interests. They did this so quickly and so brusquely that it becomes clear that NATO still has a Cold War mentality,” he said.

The current situation is reminiscent of what happened in 2008, when Georgia attacked its breakaway region of South Ossetia, killing Russian peacekeepers in the process and provoking a military response from Russia. In the first days of the conflict West blamed Russia and suspended many cooperation programs, but later acknowledged its mistake. Now it is making the same mistake all over again, Lavrov said….More Here

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