US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin would not attack a NATO country and denied media reports that CIA Director John Ratcliffe had warned Russian officials earlier this week that such an attack was unacceptable, UNN reports, citing Reuters.
"He is not going to attack NATO territory," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
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Earlier that same day, Trump said in a telephone interview with Axios that such an attack would not happen and that Ratcliffe had not been sent to Moscow to deliver any specific message.
"Ratcliffe meets with his Russian counterpart once every six months or once a year. They have a very good relationship. There was no message, and nothing unusual happened," Trump told the news outlet.
European and American intelligence services have long been tracking Russian sabotage and attacks in the "gray zone" of Europe, which do not reach the threshold of full-scale war and are generally aimed at weakening NATO unity and the readiness of member states to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.