NATO Russian borders
Now congregating on Russia's border

Putin criticized NATO's increasingly hostile attitude towards Russia during a meeting with the Federal Security Service (FSB)

It seems Putin is less than optimistic about rapprochement with Washington or its "defensive alliance".

While speaking with the Federal Security Service (FSB) on Thursday, Putin remarked that:
"[NATO] has been expanding as it did before but now they seem to have found new serious reasons to justify the bloc's expansion and have sped up the process of deploying conventional and strategic weapons beyond the member states' borders," the Russian president stressed.

He went on to say that "they have been constantly provoking us in order to embroil us in confrontation." The Russian leader also pointed to "the ongoing attempts to interfere in our internal affairs and destabilize the social and political situation in Russia."
Now that Trump has made it very clear (even on Twitter) that he expects Crimea to be "returned" to Ukraine, it appears that Moscow is not holding out much hope for any major breakthroughs in U.S.-Russia relations.


Comment: 'Crimea was taken by Russia': Attack on Flynn has changed Trump's tune


Yes, Defense Secretary James Mattis has made it clear that Europe must start increasing defense spending, but the idea that Washington is threatening to seriously back away from its commitments to the alliance is incredibly naive.

Ultimately, NATO is desperate to create a serious threat that would justify its own useless existence. The increasing hysteria over Russian hacking could be the latest attempt to do so: NATO claims that one of its main missions is to defend its member states against cyber attacks. Especially "Russian" cyber attacks.

And as NATO continues to directly and indirectly support the destabilization of the Middle East and North Africa, it appears that its strategy will be to spark ethnic and religious wars across Eurasia, and right up to Russia's borders.

NATO knows it can't directly attack Russia. That's why proxy wars were invented.

Either way, they will fail.