Russia's Prime Minister Criticizes Recent NATO Policies
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Refocusing today with a new ad directing fire instead at Hillary Clinton.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Damn it feels good to be a Clinton. A shameless politician always plays her cards right.</s>SERFATY: In the spoof of "Office Space." Many of the candidates are speaking at the conservative Christian Bob Jones University in South Carolina, making a big pitch to woo coveted evangelical voters.</s>JEB BUSH, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do not believe you put your faith if a lock box in public life and say, well, that's only for my private matters. That is just not -- that is totally wrong.</s>SERFATY: And jockeying over who has the most conservative credentials.</s>SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You disagree with people, for example, on the definition of marriage, they call you a hater and bigot. What's the next step?</s>SERFATY: Of course all this happening just one week before Republican voters head to the polls here in South Carolina. Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, Greenville, South Carolina.</s>FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the next hour of the CNN Newsroom begins right now. Hello again, everyone. Thanks for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. NATO is pushing back against contentious remarks from Russia's prime minister today. At an international security conference this morning, Dmitry Medvedev the strained relationship between Russia and the west could be described as a new cold war.</s>DMITRY MEDVEDEV, RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTER (via translator): NATO diplomacy with regard to Russia remains unfriendly and opaque. One could go as far as to say we have slid back to a new cold war. Almost on an everyday basis we are called one of the most terrible threats either to NATO as a whole or to Europe or to the United States. Sometimes I wonder whether it is 2016 we live in, or 1962.</s>WHITFIELD: Let's bring in CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson joining me from Munich. So tell us more about NATO's response, and should the west see the prime minister's comments as more of a threat rather than a complaint?</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: I think it's being viewed here as Russia's interpretation of how it sees the situation and perhaps more of an indication about what Russia does. That was certainly the opinion when I talked to the supreme allied commander of NATO forces, U.S. four-star General Philip Breedlove. He told me that it is Russia that is trying to not even rewrite the rules but create new rules, crossing international borders into Ukraine, annexing Crimea, developing increasing clusters of missile systems that are designed to target air, road, and sea, potential sea attack, all the way from Kaliningrad in the north close to NATO, St. Petersburg, Crimea, and now in northern Syria. These are sophisticated missile systems, and NATO sees Russia developing and intensifying these clusters. It's a concern. So when I said to him, what about, when Medvedev says, you, NATO, unfriendly, opaque, and are heading towards a cold war, he said no, that is not the case. That's not how NATO sees it. This is what he said.</s>ROBERTSON: Isn't this by definition the cold war, arms buildup?</s>GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE, NATO COMMANDER FOR EUROPE: Well, they are entitled to their understanding of this, and their description of this. We in NATO do not want to see a cold war. We do not talk about it. It is not what we want to happen or anticipate happening. We're a defensive alliance who are arraying ourselves to face a challenge we see. That challenge is a nation that once again decided that it will use force to change internationally recognized borders. And so we take those appropriate actions to be able to assure, defend, and deter.</s>ROBERTSON: Now, the Russian prime minister's tone there, rather sort of defensive, if you will, came after a lot of criticism here in Munich, and particularly right after the French prime minister had said NATO has got to stop bombing civilians around Aleppo -- rather, Russia has to stop bombing civilians around Aleppo, that Russia is continuing to back and support Bashar al Assad even though the Russian foreign minister just a couple days ago agreed to a cessation of hostilities in Syria in less than a week's time now. So that's why I think we're hearing the Russian prime minister is getting a little hot under the collar about the pressure he's taking here.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Nic Robertson, thank you so much, joining us from Munich. I want to bring in CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier. So Kim, you just heard the NATO commander's response. Should NATO and the White House take this cold war rhetoric very seriously?</s>KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think they understand that it is rhetoric. Russia watchers say they're less in a cold war than a hot peace. You don't have both powers pointing nuclear weapons at each other as they once did in the cold war. What you have instead is Russia using force to protect its client states or its client communities on the ground, and the U.S. and NATO pushing back. Only today Secretary of State John Kerry again called Russia aggressive. So when you have that kind of language, you have to expect it to come back from the other side. Yet in the background there's still working quietly ahead on things, as you mentioned, on the Syrian fighting, but also on nuclear deterrence. That new 2011 START treaty, where each side reports to each other, how many nuclear missiles it has, that's still holding. If stuff like that starts falling apart, that's when you really get worried.</s>WHITFIELD: And then how might this impact what is taking place in Syria as it pertains to any commitments the west wants to make, what Russia is or is not doing in Syria?</s>DOZIER: Well, it's as if each side is messaging its audience that it's doing all it can to stop the fighting. But that Russia has said it's very skeptical even a cessation of hostilities will hold and is continuing to back its state, Assad, Syrian forces. And those forces are continuing to press forward encircling Aleppo. And Russia says it will keep, quote-unquote, "targeting terrorist forces." The U.S. say you're not targeting terrorists. You're targeting U.S.-backed rebels who are legitimate opposition forces on the ground. So you see the war of words still playing itself out on the ground. It's hard to see that stopping anytime soon.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Kim Dozier, thank you so much. Appreciate it. All right, still ahead, the six remaining Republican candidates facing off tonight in South Carolina. What will tonight's debate look like? We'll talk about it, next, in the Newsroom.