The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an aggressive alliance that promotes instability and aggression, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.
"This [NATO] is not an alliance that was created, conceived and designed in order to ensure stability and security. This is an offensive alliance. This is an alliance that brings instability, which brings aggression," Peskov said.
The Kremlin spokesman added that providing Ukraine with any security guarantees by the US-led bloc is extremely wrong and very dangerous, they violate Russia's security.
"We consider it [providing Ukraine with security assurances] to be extremely erroneous and potentially very dangerous. Because by providing any kind of security assurances to Ukraine, these countries actually ignore the international principle of the indivisibility of security. That is, by providing security guarantees to Ukraine, they encroach on Russia's security," he told reporters.
This is also fraught with very, very negative consequences in the medium, long term and even in the short term, the official said, adding that Moscow does not support providing security assurances to Kiev and hopes that the voice of opponents of this will be heard.
Peskov also noted that the provision of cluster munitions to the Armed Forces of Ukraine changes the situation and forces Russia to take countermeasures.
On Friday, the United States announced a new military assistance package for Ukraine that includes cluster munitions. The weapons are prohibited by an international convention, which has been ratified by 123 countries, excluding the US and Ukraine.
"Of course, the possible use of this type of ammunition changes the situation and, of course, forces Russia to take certain countermeasures," Peskov told the Wednesday briefing.
Earlier in the day, European Council President Charles Michel said that the European Union and NATO are united in their support for Ukraine and ready to provide security guarantees to the country.
"It is also very important to make very clear that we want to be extremely united, that we are ready to provide security guarantees to Ukraine, to participate in all the efforts. We also support the just peace formula proposed by [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelenskyy," Michel said ahead of the second day of the NATO summit in Vilnius.
Earlier, Western media reported that the G7 declaration on security guarantees for Kiev could be ratified on the sidelines of the ongoing NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital.
In 1994, Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, giving up its stockpile of nuclear weapons left on its territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union in exchange for a promise by the other signatories (Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom) to guarantee its security.
The NATO summit is taking place in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on July 11-12 and is attended by the heads of state and government of all NATO member states, including US President Joe Biden. Earlier, US President's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Ukraine will not become a NATO member at the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius.
On June 19, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that at the summit and in preparation for it, the allies would not discuss Ukraine's formal invitation, but would hold consultations on what decisions would bring Kiev closer to joining the alliance.