World has slipped into a new Cold War, warns Russian prime minister

Tensions between Russia and the West have sent the world into a new Cold War, Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday. Western leaders had soured relations by raising tensions over the Ukraine conflict and Moscow`s backing of the Syrian regime, he said. “We can say it even more clearly: We have slid into a new period of Cold War,” Mr Medvedev told the Munich Security Conference.“ As a result, he warned, the world was less secure and terrorists would prosper.

Almost every day we are accused of making new horrible threats either against NATO as a whole, against Europe or against the US or other countries.

Russia prime minister Dmitry Medvedev

His comments came after Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg reiterated plans for massive military build-up on its eastern flank to counter "Russia’s actions”. Earlier, French prime minister Manuel Valls took to the floor to urge Moscow to cease its bombing raids in Syria. “France respects Russia and its interests … but we know that to find the path to peace again, the Russian bombing of civilians has to stop,” he said. But Mr Medvedev insisted there was no evidence of Russian bombs killing civilians. “Terrorism is a challenge to the whole of civilization: we must not divide terrorists into friends, enemies, extremists or ‘moderates’,” he added.

European politicians thought that creating a so-called belt of friends at Europe`s side, on the outskirts of the EU, could be a guarantee of security, and what`s the result? Not a belt of friends but a belt of exclusion.“

Mr Medvedev

medvedev