In Moscow, NATO announced conditions for reducing tensions
There is still a chance for improving relations between Russia and NATO if an understanding of the true, and not imaginary, interests of European security prevails in Brussels.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Alexander Grushko stated this at the discussion platform of the Valdai Club, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
He voiced a couple of contradictory examples in NATO policy.
“Recently, Stoltenberg (Secretary General of the Alliance - ed.) said that it turns out that it was Russia that attacked Georgia in August 2008. And what, by the way, did NATO do as a result of Saakashvili’s adventure? He was rewarded for this with the creation of the Georgia-NATO commission on September 15, 2008. Another example of NATO's "consistency". During the Maidan period, Brussels repeatedly called on Yanukovych to leave the armed forces in the barracks. When a nationalist government of victors was established in Kyiv after the coup, the Alliance decided to switch the switch - not a single word of condemnation was heard regarding the military operation launched by Poroshenko against his own people,” Grushko recalled.
At the same time, he admitted that there are still chances for changes for the better in relations between NATO and Russia, “if an understanding of the true interests of European security prevails.”
“They cannot be to push relations with Russia ever closer to a dangerous point. The implementation of Russian proposals is intended to move away from this line,” added the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation.
Among such initiatives, he named a call to resume military dialogue, to take measures to reduce military activity along the line of contact between the Russian Federation and NATO (the Baltics, the Black Sea, the Arctic regions), as well as a call to improve the mechanism for preventing military activity in the air and on sea.
In addition, in 2019, Russia proposed withdrawing exercise areas from the contact line, agreeing on the maximum permissible approach distance for aircraft and ships, and introducing the practice of mutual information about upcoming exercises.
“It is difficult to expect more in the current conditions, but if NATO is ready to work, then the implementation of these steps will at least slightly improve the situation and improve the state of security not only in relations between Russia and NATO, but also in the European and Euro-Atlantic region as a whole,” concluded Alexander Grushko.
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