Hillary Clinton Laughs At Putin

• 27.09.2023, 11:38

Her joke drew applause from the US State Department.

Former US Secretary of State and ardent opponent of US presidential candidate Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, mockingly said that it was the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin that led to NATO expansion.

According to Reuters, she said this during a speech at the State Department for the presentation of her official portrait.

“Defending democracy in Ukraine, expanding NATO — just as an aside, too bad Vladimir, you brought it on yourself,” she said, prompting laughter and applause.

“We always said that people are not forced to join NATO. People choose and want to join NATO,” she added.

The start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine pushed the Scandinavian countries to join NATO. In May 2022, Sweden and Finland applied to join the North Atlantic Alliance. In April 2023, Finland became the 31st member of NATO.

Later, Finnish Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikael Antella said that Finland was conducting bilateral negotiations with the United States regarding the deployment of an American military base on its territory.

Sweden's application for membership has been ratified by all countries in the bloc except Turkey and Hungary.