Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow plans to cut defense spending and believes NATO’s decision to increase spending could ultimately lead to its collapse.
NATO leaders supported an increase in defense spending to five percent of GDP by 2035 at a summit in The Hague on Wednesday, as called for by US President Donald Trump, and said they were determined to defend each other against the threat from Russia.
Asked to comment on a statement by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who claimed that an arms race between Russia and the West could lead to the downfall of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lavrov said he thought NATO could collapse due to increased defense spending.
“Since he is such a forecaster, he probably sees that the catastrophic increase in the budgets of NATO member states will, in my opinion, also lead to the collapse of the organization,” Lavrov said.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in the country’s east, has dismissed Western fears that it would one day attack a NATO member, which both Russia and the United States believe could trigger World War III. Putin said on Friday that Russia was considering cutting defense spending starting next year. Russia has increased defense spending by a quarter this year, to 6.4 percent of GDP, the highest since the Cold War.
Defense spending will account for 32 percent of its total budget in 2025.
