Seven minutes from Moscow: “Is it a red line for us or not?”
Putin warns of missile threat to Russia as U.S. guided-missile destroyers enter Baltic, Black Seas
In comments that got past editors in the Western news media, President Vladimir Putin in a recent Russian television interview accused the West of abusing what were good relations at the time (1999-2004) to expand NATO up to Russia’s borders. And in doing so, he specified, violated verbal pledges made by American officials to then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, adding that the latter is alive and in good health and can confirm what he was told. In a candid assessment of the matter, Putin added:
"I do not want to use harsh words, but they simply spat upon our interests and that’s that.” [Link]
Lengthy excerpts of his comments were published on the English-language site of the government news agency TASS on June 9.
The most significant, and most alarming, aspect of the interview is the Russian president’s warning of Ukraine joining NATO. Contrary to what he acknowledged is a dismissal of that prospect by many experts in Russia and in the West, whom he takes seriously, Putin [is concerned about this], especially in regard to [Ukraine's] membership providing the U.S. and NATO with new missile sites.
Without naming them he mentioned that Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) missile defense (so-called) interceptors in Romania and Poland could strike Moscow in 15 minutes if a warhead was added to them; which, although the West denies its intent to do so, could be easily done. Russia has not been invited to inspect the missiles, for example.