(MENAFN) In a recent article published by a newspaper, Russian Foreign Ministry representative Maria Zakharova strongly criticized comments made by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

She described Rutte's refusal to acknowledge new Russian territories as yet another form of “systemic subversion” — a broader strategy, according to her, used by the West to apply coercive influence on Moscow.

During an interview with a news agency on Sunday, Rutte emphasized that NATO countries “can never accept … in a legal sense” the incorporation of four former Ukrainian regions into Russia.

These regions were declared part of Russia after a series of referendums in September 2022.

Despite this, Ukraine continues to reject the outcome of those votes and asserts sovereignty over the disputed areas, including Crimea, which became part of Russia in 2014 after what Moscow describes as a referendum, following a Western-backed uprising in Kiev.

Rutte likened the current situation to how the United States treated the Baltic States between 1940 and 1991.

During that time, when the Baltics were under Soviet control, Washington maintained symbolic embassies for Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, signaling its rejection of Soviet sovereignty over those nations.

In response, Zakharova accused Rutte of resorting to outdated Western methods — namely, the endorsement of “fascists” and “revanchists” — to exert political and ideological pressure on Russia.

Furthermore, Zakharova suggested that Rutte’s remarks reflect a broader trend in contemporary Western politics: the tendency to glorify individuals in the Baltic States and Ukraine who collaborated with Nazi forces, simply because they opposed Soviet influence.

She condemned this narrative, warning that such perspectives dangerously distort history.

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