Kremlin commented on Hillary Clinton's statement on the reasons for NATO expansion

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has responded to former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s role in NATO expansion.

"Mrs. Clinton is known in our country for trying to twist things and distort ideas," he told reporters.

Peskov’s comments came after Hillary Clinton addressed Putin by name and said, "you brought it on yourself," when she mentioned the latest NATO expansion on a recent visit to the US State Department, Reuters reported.

"As for the sequence of President Putin's actions, one should remind Mrs. Clinton of the numerous waves of NATO expansion and moving the alliance's military infrastructure closer to our borders, then Putin's insistent proposal to Western countries to discuss this situation and sign a certain document [on security guarantees], the draft of which was prepared by the Russian side, and the resolute refusal of Western countries to discuss anything. And then the reasons behind the special military operation become quite clear," Peskov said.

He also recalled an incident that took place in 2009, when Hillary Clinton, serving as the US Secretary of State at the time, presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a button that was supposed to symbolize the reset of relations between Washington and Moscow. However, instead of the word "reset," the button was mistakenly labeled "overload."

"It is clear that this was probably an unintentional mistake, although it was quite telling anyway," the spokesman said.