Putin says idea that Russia is planning to attack NATO is 'nonsense' designed to fool Western taxpayers

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 19 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the idea that Russia was planning to attack the NATO military alliance was nonsense and peddled by Western politicians to fool taxpayers into spending more on defence.

Putin said Russia posed no threat to NATO and did not regard the Western alliance's own rearmament plans as a threat to Russia, but believed their plans made no sense.