Russian President Vladimir Putin shared his view on the tensions regarding North Korea crisis and warned that United States and North Korea were "on the brink of a large-scale conflict."
Putin penned a statement which was published on the Kremlin's website on Friday, September 1, ahead of a summit of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations in China.
"I have to say a few words about the situation on the Korean Peninsula, where tensions have grown recently and the situation is balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict," he wrote.
The Russian president went on saying that focusing solely on pressuring North Korea to give up its missile program is "futile and misguided."
It can be recalled that Russia voted along with the rest of the United Nations Security Council to impose stricter sanctions on North Kore following their missile tests in July.
"Russian experts put most of the blame for this escalating crisis on the United States. They are skeptical that North Korea would ever attack the United States, seeing such threats as just a bluff," said Georgy Toloraya, Director of Korean Programs at the Institute of Economy at the Russian Academy of Science.
Moscow also told Washington that the additional sanctions on North Korea could prove "counterproductive and dangerous."
"The region's problems should only be settled through a direct dialogue of all the parties concerned without any preconditions. Provocations, pressure and militarist and insulting rhetoric are a dead-end road," the Russian president wrote, inviting all parties to reject the belligerent rhetoric and engage in dialogue.
