Kosovo
Friday 21 July 2017
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Vladimir Putin
President, Russian Federation
“When a country joins NATO it becomes next to impossible for it to resist pressure from major NATO leaders such as the United States, and hence, it may deploy anything – a missile defense system, new bases, or if need be, missile strike systems.”
Read more...The Russian president says the United States and other major NATO members use the alliance to exert pressure against Russia by forcing Eastern European members to establish missile defense systems. But Eastern nations say they are the ones demanding more military installations and troops. -
Sergei Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister
“I will recall that the aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was associated with attacks on a huge number of civilian facilities… Thousands of those killed, several hundred children out of them..."
Read more...At the time, Yugoslav officials said much the same thing. However, a detailed accounted by Yugoslavia’s Foreign Ministry listed around 400 civilians killed. And in one of the most authoritative studies of the NATO action, Human Rights Watch estimated some 500 were killed. So Lavrov’s claim of “thousands” seems way off the mark.