Russian MFA spokesperson: NATO allies pay US like vassals

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has stated that the United States collects payments from its NATO partners “like tribute from vassals,” while also creating threats within the alliance itself.

Commenting on NATO dynamics and burden-sharing within the alliance, she said all these NATO member states are regularly paying tribute to the United States within the North Atlantic Alliance because Washington has said it takes responsibility for them and is ready to ensure their security, Caliber.Az reports, citing Russian media.

She added that the alliance was originally based on equality among members, but that the current reality is different.

“Now everything has been reduced to the idea that they are supposedly equal, but at the same time the United States takes tribute from these other equals as if they are not equals but vassals,” Zakharova said.

According to her, what is phenomenal is that all NATO members pay the United States to protect them — without really saying from whom, but implying that there is an eastern neighbour, Russia — while the United States itself is threatening to take Greenland.

“So who exactly are they protecting them from if they themselves are doing such things internally?” she stressed.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov