In an interview with British online magazine UnHerd, First Deputy Representative of Russia to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy has said that Russia no longer sees a difference between NATO and the EU, which is why it opposes Kyiv’s EU membership bid.
Commenting on the plans of Finland and Sweden to join NATO, Polyanskiy said that it would turn them overnight from neutral into enemy countries.
“They know that the moment they become members of NATO it will imply certain mirror moves on the Russian side,” he said. “If there are NATO detachments in those territories, these territories would become a target — or a possible target — for a strike.”
At the same time, their membership in the Alliance is, according to Polyanskiy, not a huge blow to the security of Russia, with the diplomat insisting that this will be the worst solution for them, not for Russia.
“Russia is ready to face NATO threats, Russia has made the necessary precautions for this. It doesn’t change very much the security situation in Europe, which is dominated and aggravated by the NATO threat to Russia for many years,” he said, adding that NATO is Russia’s enemy.
He also repeated the claims that Russia is not conducting a war in Ukraine and commented on Ukraine’s EU aspirations.
“At the beginning we were not too worried about the EU. The situation changed after Borrel (top EU diplomat, LD) announced that the outcome of this war will be decided on the battlefield. And also because the EU is a leader in terms of weapons supply to Ukraine. So, I believe that our stance toward Ukraine’s accession to the EU as the same as with NATO since we cannot tell the difference between the two,” he said.
He also added that he is “absolutely sure” Russia would use nuclear weapons if it faced an existential threat and sees no diplomatic solution to the current war.
