Russian Foreign Minister: Higher Defence Budget Will Be End of NATO
NATO is running the risk of blowing itself up, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believes.
The new, much higher defence budgets agreed upon at the NATO summit in The Hague could be “disastrous” for the alliance. Russia says it wants to spend less on defence, although it has significantly increased spending since the invasion of Ukraine.
NATO countries agreed in The Hague on Wednesday that they want to invest 3.5 percent of their economy in defence within ten years.
Another 1.5 percent of gross domestic product should go to supporting matters, such as making infrastructure and the arms industry war-proof. That requires many billions of euros extra from member states, some of which say they do not know where to get them from.
“A disastrous increase in the budget of NATO countries will, according to my estimates, lead to the collapse of this organisation,” Lavrov said on Monday.
