Putin 'Laughing' At NATO: Exiled Official
BY DAVID BRENNAN ON 7/14/23 AT 5:00 AM EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top officials will be "laughing" at NATO's indecision in admitting Ukraine to the alliance and providing all the weapons Kyiv has been asking for to help it defeat the Kremlin's full-scale invasion, according to one Russian diplomat-turned-dissident.
Boris Bondarev—a former Russian representative at the United Nations in Geneva who resigned his position in May 2022 in protest of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine—told Newsweek that NATO's refusal to invite Ukraine into the alliance or provide a clear timeline for its accession would be seen as a victory by the Kremlin.
The sentiment in Moscow, Bondarev said, "would be that NATO didn't invite Ukraine because they are afraid of Russia, they still are still afraid of provoking Putin."
"This can be exploited to Moscow's benefit," Bondarev added. "We may still threaten, we may still make hints that, for instance, a nuclear strike is still an option, and that would help us to keep NATO at bay, so they do not interfere too much. That's how they see it."
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-laughing-nato-exiled-official-boris-bondarev-vilnius-ukraine-us-joe-biden-1812806?piano_t=1
