As military and diplomatic sources told Izvestia, the analysis of American hypersonic weapons showed that the Pentagon's stake was placed on the development of ground- and air-based systems with a non-strategic range. This will make it possible to quickly create a grouping of such forces and means in Eastern European countries, in particular in Ukraine, without the need to build a complex and expensive infrastructure.
Vladimir Putin spoke about the danger of deploying such weapons in Europe at a large press conference on December 23. He stressed that the further advance of NATO to the east is unacceptable.
"Are we putting missiles near the borders of the United States? No. It is the United States that has come to our house with its missiles, they are already on the threshold of our house," the head of state stressed. — Is it some kind of excessive requirement not to put any more shock systems at our house?"
At the expanded board of the Ministry of Defense on December 21, the President of Russia specified the concerns of the military leadership. He said that from the Ukrainian territory, promising American hypersonic missiles can reach Moscow in five minutes, and conventional ones in seven to ten minutes.
"Since the liquidation of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the strategic situation has changed in a threatening direction for Russia," former Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ordzhonikidze explained to Izvestia. - To date, NATO troops have already entered the borders of the former USSR. All European Warsaw Pact countries have become members of the North Atlantic Alliance. Now we actually have nowhere to retreat. The approach time of the rockets decreased with catastrophic rapidity. The NATO grouping is disproportionately more numerous than the Russian one. They say that we are threatening someone, but it looks stupid and ridiculous if they have superiority in all types of weapons."
According to the diplomat, clear, legally fixed agreements could neutralize the threats.
"We need an agreement on which lines troops cannot cross, where nuclear weapons are not deployed, that strategic bombers do not fly near borders. In other words, there are no threatening actions in the air, on the ground and at sea," Sergei Ordzhonikidze concluded.
On December 15, 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry published a draft agreement on security measures for the Russian Federation and NATO member states. It provides for the refusal to join the bloc of Ukraine and other states, as well as the refusal to conduct any military activity on its territory.
Read more in the exclusive material of Izvestia:
On the crest of the war: will Ukraine be covered by another wave of NATO expansion
