This pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik shows Russia's President Vladimir Putin meeting with Constitutional Court judges in Moscow on December 12, 2023. Picture: Mikhail Tereshchenko / POOL / AFP
Russia has no interest in going to war with NATO countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.
In an interview with a local TV channel, Putin refuted the claims that Russia may attack NATO as "absurd and a figure of speech".
Moscow and NATO countries "have no territorial claims against each other", he said, stressing that Russia does not seek to sour relations with NATO countries.
Instead, Russia is interested in developing relations with these countries, he added.
Slamming the scheme of some Western countries to launch a colour revolution in his country, Putin said it will never work in Russia that is "a free, independent and sovereign state".
On US-Russia relations, Putin said: "They will have to find common ground with us because they will have to take us into account."
Meanwhile, the The Freedom of Russia Legion, a Ukrainian-based paramilitary group of Russians who oppose President Vladimir Putin, claimed responsibility on Sunday for a cross-border attack a few kilometres (miles) into Russia's Belgorod region.
The group, designated as terrorist in Russia, said it had destroyed a platoon stronghold of Russian troops near Terebreno village, without specifying whether it had destroyed infrastructure or killed soldiers, and said it had left mines behind.
Reuters could not verify the claims of the group, which says it was formed in spring 2022 to fight Putin's forces from within the ranks of the armed forces of Ukraine, which has in the past denied involvement in attacks in Belgorod by Freedom of Russia Legion and another Russian anti-Putin group.
Earlier on Sunday, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod region, which experiences frequent attacks by Ukrainian forces, said Terebreno was under fire from Ukraine's Armed Forces and that a "shooting battle" was under way on the village edge.
He said no civilians had been injured but three houses and power lines were damaged. On Saturday he posted on the Telegram messaging app that 19 villages or farms had come under attack from Ukrainian shelling or from explosive devices dropped by drones.