Russian PM: West rekindling the Cold War

Iran, Russia and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement are propping up the Alawite-led Assad government, while Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar back the more moderate Sunni-dominated opposition, along with the US, UK and France.

Terrorists are gaining influence and benefiting from Russian-Western discord, Medvedev told the gathering.

Facing various challenges including terrorism and regional conflicts, cooperation instead of confrontation was necessary, he said.

Dmitry Medvedev said Russian President Vladimir Putin told the same Munich Security Conference in 2007 that the West’s building of a missile defense system risked restarting the Cold War, and that now “the picture is more grim; the developments since 2007 have been worse than anticipated”. “To adhere to the agreement it made, Russia’s targeting must change”. “No one has yet presented any evidence of our air strikes hitting the civilian population”.

In attendance at the conference were government representatives who included Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Ukrainian President Petro Poroschenko, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

With tensions high over the lingering Ukraine conflict and Russia’s backing of the Syrian regime, Medvedev said: “All that’s left is an unfriendly policy of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation against Russia”.

“We need to have peace, we need to have negotiations, and for that, we need to stop bombings against civilians”, Valls said during his speech in Munich.

Why is there a war in Syria?

“It is important to save a united Syrian state, preventing it from falling apart into religion-based [fragments]”.

Russia’s assertive posture in Syria and over Ukraine has raised diplomats’ concerns about geopolitical instability.

The defense ministry for Russian Federation turned the tables Thursday with accusations against the United States. Poroshenko added: “This alternative Europe has its own leader”. “It’s essential we engage with Russian Federation”.

“I mean a threat that the Schengen zone might collapse”.

“This is just a beginning of the work”, Medvedev said.

“Under (the) disguise of refugees, hundreds and thousands of extremists are infiltrating other countries”, he said.