MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/. Countries in Southeast Asia are being forced into creating NATO-like blocs, Russian Defense Minister, General of the Army Sergey Shoigu told the Moscow International Security Conference on Wednesday.
“Countries in the region are being forced into opting for the creation of structures similar to NATO,” Shoigu said. For this, economic and financial sanctions are employed in combination with pressures, provocations of military incidents and campaigns to brainwash the public. “The means and methods of such pressure are getting universal and being used in any part of the world, but today these problems manifest themselves most graphically in Southeast Asia,” Shoigu said.
“Just as it is the case in Europe, forward-deployment high readiness groups are being created there, and aircraft carrier task forces deployed. NATO ships ever more often join military exercises alongside countries in the region, which increases the risk of incidents in the course of military activity,” he said.
