Putin calls NATO 'relic of the Cold War'

AP via Cybercast News ^ | April 11, 2012 | AP Staff

[Olog-hai]

Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called NATO a "relic of the Cold War era," but said Russia should nonetheless continue supporting the alliance's mission in Afghanistan.

Putin, who won a third presidential term last month, defended the government's intention to offer NATO a new logistics facility on Russian territory to facilitate transit of military cargo to and from Afghanistan.

"It's in our national interests to help maintain stability in Afghanistan," Putin told lawmakers who voiced concerns that a NATO facility on Russian soil would threaten its security.

Moscow has provided the U.S. and other NATO member states with air corridors and railway routes for carrying supplies to and from landlocked Afghanistan — the link that has become particularly important since Pakistan partially blocked NATO supplies from crossing its territory following an alliance airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani border troops in November.

The new deal, which is now being considered by the Russian government, would for the first time allow alliance members to set up a logistics facility in the Volga River city of Ulyanovsk for troops and cargo on Russian territory.

Putin said that while Russia sees the alliance as a Cold War relic and has been critical of some of its actions, it views NATO's efforts in Afghanistan as crucial for its own security interests, helping prevent instability from spreading into ex-Soviet Central Asia. …

[RatRipper]

Then why bother to fret about it Pootin’.

[OkiMusashi]

Buy that man a mirror!

[FlingWingFlyer]

Exactly. Putin is also a “relic of the Cold War”.

[hinckley buzzard]

He's right. NATO is a parody of what it was meant to be. It should be dissolved.

[rotstan]

And the Russian Federation is an anachronistic relic of the Russian Empire. Maybe that should be broken up first?

[Olog-hai]

This is a man who said seven years ago that the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20^th Century was the fall of the USSR. (Not WWII or anything like that.) That’s what guides the man’s thinking and his political philosophy, albeit not to bring back communism but some other kind of totalitarianism.

[Mike Darancette]

Said as the Warsaw Pact lay upon the ash heap of history.

[NoLibZone]

A KGB guy that is the lifetime president of Russia says ...

LOL

[factoryrat]

I thought the chinese took over russia. Who knew they were still up there freezing their a$$es off. At least the the Tsars knew how to kick a$$ when they needed to, unlike those communist candy asses. This would make my Russian ancestors douse them in vodka, and set then on fire, and drink to their demise, minus the vodka idiot flambe.

[Timber Rattler]

He’s right. NATO is pretty much useless right now.

[Olog-hai]

Useless to the USA perhaps. Not to the EU, though. And Putin still wants them out of the way.

[kempo]

Yea and at the same time do away with the UN. What a bunch of worthless SOBs that has been.

[Tailgunner Joe]

KGB Putin is a relic of the Cold War. He still can't accept that his side lost and that he and the rest of the evil Soviet Communists were humiliated and defeated by Ronald Reagan.

NATO scares Putin because NATO is the most powerful military force in the world and it stands in the way of the Kremlin's revanchist Neo-Soviet aggression against its neighbors.