Here's more from our news desk on Gorbachev's comments about NATO:
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has accused NATO of preparing for a “hot” war against Russia and says rhetoric from alliance’s leaders is pushing the two sides toward a military confrontation.
"NATO has begun preparations for escalating from a Cold War into a hot one," Gorbachev was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying on July 9.
His comments came as NATO leaders met in Warsaw for the final day of a summit, where the alliance endorsed a new major deployment of armed forces to Eastern Europe that Moscow has fiercely criticized.
NATO says the move is a response to Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and its backing of separatists fighting Kyiv’s forces in eastern Ukraine.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on July 9 that the alliance does not see any “imminent threat” against its member states but that it does not enjoy the "strategic partnership" with Russia that it pursued after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev, who presided over the Soviet collapse, said that NATO leaders "only talk about defense, but actually are preparing for offensive operations."
"All of the rhetoric in Warsaw simply clamors for all but declaring war on Russia," he was quoted as saying.
NATO leaders have repeatedly rejected Russia’s accusations that the alliance is ratcheting up tensions. They say the bloc is not seeking confrontation but rather boosting its defenses in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states, like Georgia, where the Kremlin backs separatist-controlled regions.
Despite being receiving a Nobel Prize and praise in many Western capital, the 85-year-old Gorbachev is widely reviled among many Russians, who see his role in the disintegration of the Soviet Union as an act of cowardice and betrayal. He speaks out regularly on Russian politics, though his criticism of the Kremlin has become muted in recent years.
Read The Power Vertical's Brian Whitmore's take on the summit. Warsaw: A Very Big Deal.
One of our correspondents at the summit, Stuart Greer, finds out just what's in those NATO gift bags...
Obama speaking in Warsaw just now:
U.S. President Barack Obama says there can be “no business as usual” with Russia until it “fully implements” the agreement aimed at ending the war between Kyiv’s forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Speaking July 9 at a news conference in Warsaw, where he was participating in a NATO summit, Obama cited Russian aggression in Ukraine as one of an unprecedented range of security, humanitarian, and political challenges the alliance faces.
“This is a pivotal moment for our alliance,” Obama said, adding that Washington’s commitment to “the security and defense of Europe” is “unwavering."
Referring to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its backing for armed separatists in eastern Ukraine, Obama said that Moscow has violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of an independent European nation, Ukraine, and engaged in provocative behavior toward NATO allies.
His comments came ahead of next week’s meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, the second such meeting this year. The council was set up in the 1990s to address Russia’s misgivings about the alliance expanding eastward, but was suspended following the Crimea annexation.
“Our 28 nations are united in our view that there can be no business as usual with Russia until it fully implements its Minsk obligations,” Obama said, referring to the peace deal signed in the Belarusian capital in 2015.
Barring any major developments, that ends the NATO live blogging.