Russia threatens to burn NATO military bases, Kremlin declared direct confrontation with alliance

Russia and NATO are now in direct confrontation, the Kremlin has declared, on the day the US-led military alliance celebrates its 75th anniversary.
As NATO leaders and diplomats gathered for a ceremony in Brussels marking 75 years of the security bloc, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow: “In fact, relations have now slipped to the level of direct confrontation”.
“NATO was already involved in the conflict surrounding Ukraine and continues to move towards our borders and expand its military infrastructure towards our borders”, he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Western countries are trying to compel all NATO member states to sign up for providing obligatory aid to Ukraine just so long as Kiev keeps up its fight against Russia.
"Now they want to turn voluntary military aid to Ukraine into mandatory military aid under NATO auspices, to force all NATO members to sign up for the obligatory provision of funds and weapons to the Kiev regime through heavy-handed disciplinary measures, just so that it can continue to fight Russia," the top diplomat said at a meeting with foreign ambassadors on a potential settlement in Ukraine.
Bases of the North Atlantic Alliance in Ukraine, if any are ever deployed to the former Soviet republic, will be Russia's legitimate target and will burn, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told.
"These bases will burn. There once was the Yavorovsky training ground on Ukrainian soil where NATO had been training its troops. That target was absolutely legitimate," the Russian diplomat said, when asked how Russia would react were the North Atlantic Alliance to resume training troops in Ukraine or deploying repair centers there at Kiev’s request.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that today the military potential and capabilities of almost all major NATO countries are being "actively used against Russia." Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu emphasized that Moscow was fighting not so much with the Ukrainian military as with the "collective West."