Over 400 U.S. military sites have been deployed in countries surrounding Russia, and the Pentagon will open its bases in Ukraine if American peacekeepers are sent there, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has said.
"I agree. No matter where the Americans go, bases are built there," Antonov said in an interview published by the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on Thursday.
He recalled the opening of bases in Qatar after Operation Desert Storm.
"Six bases opened when Iraq was occupied. After the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had visited Afghanistan, a dozen bases were deployed there. They are claimed to be temporary facilities but, in fact, this is not so," Antonov said.
Officially, the United States has opened 860 bases abroad, and over 400 bases and military sites are operating around Russia, the deputy minister stated.
Speaking of Kiev's request for a peacekeeping operation in Donbass, he said, "What can happen then? There are the Minsk agreements and they need to be honored. They are telling us now that we should scrap what we have and start doing something new. This is not the way things are done in diplomacy. We have a fundamental document and it must be fulfilled."
"Clearly, it is impossible to fulfill every provision of this document immediately because it stipulates a certain sequence of events. Nothing can be ruled out in the future but everything planned in Minsk must be implemented in the first turn," the deputy minister said.
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