Russian President Vladimir Putin realized that Ukraine's accession to NATO could pose a threat of war between the NATO bloc and Russia over the temporarily occupied Crimea.
He said this during the press conference following the meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“Listen to what I have to say, carefully. After all, in the doctrinal documents of Ukraine, it is stated that they are going to take Crimea back, including by military means – it is not what they say in public, but it is written in the documents. Imagine that Ukraine is a member of NATO: stuffed with weapons, there are modern strike systems, just like in Poland and Romania - who will interfere - and start their operations in the Crimea, Now I'm not even talking about Donbas. This [Crima] is a sovereign Russian territory. The question is closed for us. Let's imagine that Ukraine is a NATO country and it is starting these military operations. What, we will need to fight the NATO bloc then? Has anyone thought of this? It seems they have not,” Putin stated.
He noted that the North Atlantic Alliance deceived Russia in the past, and added that after the announcement of the ultimatum, the West ignored Russia’s demands for ‘basic’ security requirements.
"We did not see adequate consideration of our three key requirements: to prevent NATO expansion, to refuse to deploy strike weapons systems near Russian borders, as well as to shape the military infrastructure of the bloc in Europe as it was in 1997, when the main Russia-NATO Act was signed," Putin said.
Earlier, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine and Georgia would become members of NATO, but the Alliance did not set a deadline for this to happen.