Russia Wants a 100% Guarantee That Ukraine Wont Join NATO

TIME World Ukraine Russia Wants a 100% Guarantee That Ukraine Wont Join NATO Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with members of the All-Russia Popular Front in Moscow on Nov. 18, 2014 Alexei DruzhininAP Comment's come as NATO's secretary-general accuses Kremlin of "destabilizing" Ukraine

A top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that the Kremlin wants a 100% guarantee that Ukraine will be prevented from joining NATO.

Dmitri Peskov told the BBC that NATOs eastward expansion continued to make Russia nervous. His comments echoed similar tough talk coming from President Putin, who promised a crowd attending a forum in Moscow on Tuesday that Russia would never be subdued by Washington.

Throughout history no one has ever managed to do so toward Russia and no one ever will, RT quoted Putin as saying.

Putins remarks came as NATOs Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg accused the Russian leadership of destabilizing Ukraine and breaking a two-month-old truce by continuing to support separatist forces fighting in the countrys southeast.

We see the movement of troops, of equipment, of tanks, of artillery, of advance air-defense systems, and this is in violation of the cease-fire agreements, said Stoltenberg, after arriving at the European Union headquarters in Brussels. We call on Russia to pull back its forces from eastern Ukraine and to respect the Minsk Agreements.

The alliance, along with independent monitors, has issued numerous reports during the past two weeks claiming that the Russian military is moving armored columns across the border into Ukraine, where rebel militias have been shelling strategic locations in the war-torn Donbass region on a daily basis.

In Moscow on Tuesday, Germanys Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned during a press conference that there was no end in sight to the conflict in Ukraine unless all parties to the Minsk accord stuck to the cease-fire.

There are no grounds for optimism in the current situation, Steinmeier told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel struck an even harsher tone labeling Russias incursions into Ukraine as dangerous and irresponsible.

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Russia Wants a 100% Guarantee That Ukraine Wont Join NATO