Russian PM: West rekindling the Cold War

(Vatican Radio) Russia has rejected accusations that it has been bombing civilians in Syria and says tensions with the West over the issue and its role in Ukraine has led to a new Cold War.

Russia’s prime minister didn’t hold back when he took the stage at the Munich Security Conference with other world powers in attendance.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg accused Russian of using its nuclear armament as a means of bullying foreign neighbours.

Meanwhile, Stoltenberg stressed the need to have dialogues but defended NATO’s moves in bolstering defenses, including moving more troops and equipment to the regions that lie on the border of Russian Federation.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hit back at Kerry’s comments, saying the new deal on Syria could not only focus on Russia’s role. “But we believe that it’s first and foremost up to the Kiev authorities to do that”, he said. We are simply trying to protect our national interests. A one-year-old peace deal – the Minsk agreement – has not been fully implemented.

“Almost every day we are referred to as the most bad threat to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as a whole or to Europe, America and other countries specifically”, the Russian premier further said, according to Russia Today.

Of Ukraine, Kerry said Russian Federation must comply with the requirements of a peace agreement brokered by Germany and France in Minsk, Belarus past year.

Dmitry Medvedev spoke at the Munich Security Conference shortly before John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, accused Russian Federation of “repeated aggression” and killing civilians. “I sometimes wonder – are we in 2016 or 1962?”, Medvedev asked in a speech to the Munich Security ConFerence.

Relations between Russian Federation and the West have been in a downward spiral since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and support of hostilities in eastern Ukraine, which prompted a series of crippling economic sanctions against Russian Federation.

He said the main danger to Europeans is an “alternative Europe with alternative values” such as isolation, intolerance and disrespect of human rights. “His name is Mr. Putin”. “Russia can prove by its actions that it will respect Ukraine’s sovereignty just as it insists for respect for its own”.

Pressure is mounting on Russian Federation to work with the global community in determining which groups in Syria to attack – and which, instead, deserve a seat at talks on a peaceful future for the country.

‘We have slid into a new period of Cold War, ‘ he said. Its intervention in the conflict since late September has significantly strengthened the hand of President Bashar al-Assad, who on Friday vowed to regain control of the entire country. By immediately adopting the hardest possible line-“Assad must go”-we removed any incentive for opposition groups to negotiate for peaceful change”.

But Medvedev also struck a more positive note, saying: “Our positions differ, but they do not differ as much as 40 years ago when a wall was standing in Europe”.