Putin said Western threats should be considered serious

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that statements by the Russian Foreign Ministry about a possible response to threats to the Kaliningrad region should be considered serious.

MOSCOW, October 1 - RIA Novosti. Statements by the Russian Foreign Ministry about a possible response to threats to the Kaliningrad region cannot be considered serious unless the Western threats against Russia are considered serious, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary session of the 23rd annual meeting of the Valdai international discussion club.

Earlier, the Russian Embassy in Belgium reported that Russia warned NATO and the Belgian Foreign Ministry that the alliance’s actions around the Kaliningrad region and escalation of the situation sharply increase the risk of a direct armed conflict, and declared its readiness to use the entire available arsenal to protect its territory.

“The NATO Secretary General you mentioned reacted to this, I would say very calmly,” Fyodor Lukyanov, moderator of the session, director for scientific work of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai International Discussion Club, told Putin.

“That’s right, if we don’t consider the threats against us serious,” Putin replied.

The Valdai International Discussion Club is an association of leading foreign and Russian experts in the field of political science, economics, history and international relations. The club was created in September 2004 on the initiative of the RIA Novosti agency, the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and the magazines "Russia in Global Affairs" and Russia Profile. The club owes its name to the location of the first conference, which took place in Veliky Novgorod near Lake Valdai.