Global Courant
MOSCOW (Reuters) – After Hillary Clinton tried to bully President Vladimir Putin over NATO expansion, the Kremlin hit back on Wednesday by reminding her of her blunder when she tried to “reset” relations with Russia with a button mistakenly identified as ‘overload’ was labeled.
As she returned to the State Department for the unveiling of her official portrait, Clinton said of NATO expansion: “Too bad, Vladimir. You brought it on yourself.’
Asked about her comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Clinton was known in Russia for her attempts to turn everything upside down, but especially for her 2009 blunder when a symbolic button designed to trigger a “reset” of ties between the US and Russia was pressed. instead labeled “overload” in Russian.
“It is clear that this was probably not an intentional error, but significant,” Peskov said.
At the time of Clinton’s blunder, Secretary of State Sergei Lavrov told her that the Russian verb the United States had used was incorrect, but said the button would be placed on his desk.
“It is probably necessary to remind Mrs. Clinton of the numerous waves of NATO expansion and the approach of the alliance’s military infrastructure to our borders,” Peskov said.
NATO, founded in 1949 to provide collective security against the Soviet Union, was expanded after the Union’s collapse in 1991 with the entry of former Soviet and Warsaw Pact countries.
Launching the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin listed his main objectives: halting NATO’s eastward expansion and ending what he called the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people by “nationalists and neo-Nazis” in Ukraine since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Putin’s actions encouraged Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, to join NATO. Sweden also wants to participate.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Gareth Jones)
