MOSCOW. March 13 (Interfax) - The NATO states' hostile steps in the context of the Ukraine crisis provoke serious strategic risks and may lead to direct military conflicts between nuclear powers, the Kremlin said on its website.
"The sides believe the most destabilizing actions by the NATO states, which provoke strategic risks, include, above all else, the continuing hostile steps in the context of the Ukraine crisis, which may lead to a direct military conflict between nuclear powers," the presidents of Russia and Belarus said in a joint statement issued after bilateral talks.
Such destabilizing actions also include "plans to deploy in Europe U.S. intermediate and shorter-range ground-based missiles, the increase of anti-missile potentials, which form and support the European segment of the global U.S. missile defense system, the deployment of military infrastructure and considerable military forces on the borders of the Union State," the statement said.
Besides, the leaders of Russia and Belarus believe intensification of military activities in the contact areas and "development of schemes and potentials of so-called joint nuclear missions of NATO, which use U.S. nuclear weapons deployed in Europe, carries serious risks.
"The sides intend to continue coordinating their positions on the activities of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its member states aimed at creating challenges and threats to the security and interests of Russia and Belarus, taking political, diplomatic, military and military-technical countermeasures, when necessary," the statement said.
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