Russia-NATO Alliance (RNC)

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

- In the United States, the propaganda machine has no boundaries. - says Alexander Viktorovich Grushko, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to NATO - Already, it seems, they have reached the limit in their fabrications, it would seem, further, as they say, there is nowhere. But no. More and more accusations and demands of fantastic argumentation are being found. And this will continue until the attitude towards Russia changes.

The Moscow-Brussels teleconference on the Russia-NATO alliance with our Permanent Representative, held in the last days of the leap year 2016 at the Russia-Today MIA, brought a lot of interesting things to the journalists in this aspect of the “tense friendship”.

Alexander Viktorovich described the current situation in the Alliance. The United States is doing everything it can and cannot to be the strongest in the world, and at any point and in any aspect. If they are not satisfied with some kind of containment or arms control agreements, they shamelessly violate the spirit of the treaties. However, they try to pretend that they adhere to the letter of the agreements on the limitation of armaments in Europe, finding tricks, sewn, as they say, with white thread, ways.

For example, why are missile defense elements installed in Eastern Europe? Yes, Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, or rather their territories - the so-called "gray zone", are not parties to any arms control treaties. Placing such funds in Western Europe would fall under the restrictions of a number of control and containment treaties, but here it is possible. You can't, of course, but you can.

There was a smell of tension in the Black Sea too. A number of treaties have been in force here since ancient times, focused on good-neighborly relations between 6 states of the coastal territory. However, instead of one of its brigades, Romania is creating a brigade on an international basis, attracting NATO representatives from other countries. This somehow does not fit with the Montreux convention of 1936 and subsequent agreements.

“The creation of a NATO grouping in the Black Sea will undermine security in this region,” our permanent representative continued, “all these plans to create such a group will undermine security in the region. I remember one of the Bulgarian leaders recently said quite rightly that he would prefer to see not military ships on the Black Sea horizon, but merchant and cruise yachts. We must strive for this, strive to ensure that this is an area of economic and political interaction, especially since there is an appropriate format for this.

And yet another challenge of recent times: an increase of 2 percent of the GDP of each NATO member country in military spending. And this is an additional $ 100 billion. Their total budget will be several times higher than the budget of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Today, however, an opportunity is being created to reopen the alliance's dialogue with Russia.

“Consultations on the next meeting of the Russia-NATO Council (RNC) will begin after the New Year holidays,” Alexander Viktorovich continued. “Russia is open to dialogue and believes that it is important in itself.

Considering that in 2015 there was not a single meeting even at the level of permanent representatives, then 2016 was a shift in this issue, because the permanent representatives gathered three times, the last time on December 19.

- We are open to dialogue. Let me remind you once again that it was not we who froze the work of the council. Ideally, we would like the meetings to have some added value, although the dialogue itself is important, and we should not underestimate its importance,”Grushko said.

The journalists asked a few questions to the Permanent Representative, I asked:

- Alexander Viktorovich, US Ambassador to the Alliance Douglas Lute said in an interview with ABC that Russia "has become a source of instability, uncertainty and unpredictability."Don't you think that the United States, and not only here, is blaming Russia for exactly what they themselves are to blame?

- I have already said that uncertainty and unpredictability are inherent precisely in the behavior of the United States and other NATO countries, this is clearly seen, for example, on missile defense in Romania and the location of a contingent of 4 battalions in the Baltic countries.

Military strategists, including NATO, have proven that the Baltic is not defensible against the Russian military machine. It will "fall" instantly, by military standards, within days, no matter how protected it is. However, the conclusions of American experts are paradoxically opposite: “let's give the Baltic countries more weapons, deploy additional forces there, etc., etc.”

After the assassination of my colleague, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Karlov, which happened last week, all international diplomacy must be reviewed. This case is out of the ordinary and worth a serious revaluation. And now all events must be seen as before and after.

In addition to hawks, there are sensible politicians in the West, I would like to note, for example, Steinmeier's initiative to introduce at least some kind of arms control in Europe. But who is to blame for the loss of control in Europe? Well, certainly not Russia.

Vladimir Matveev