06.04.2017, Russia.
NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller’s announcement made at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, before the developments in Ukraine, that NATO does not plan to strengthen eastern the borders of the Alliance was called an example of false and unverified information, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, dd. April 4.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stresses the point that NATO officials render false meaning to events starting from “NATO non-expansion to the east” up to today’s claims that strengthening NATO’s presence on the eastern borders “is not threatening to anyone, that it is being done only for defensive purposes and is proportionate.” Actually, they are trying to gain a strategic advantage in Eastern Europe, they strengthen military groups, organize command units, warehouses, other structures, strengthen air patrol in the Baltic States. The intensity and frequency of military exercises of the NATO-countries is increasing. Taking these developments into account, Russia will continue to deploy missile troops to the Kaliningrad region and strengthen its western military forces.
NATO had two stages of its expansion to the east: Eastern European countries were entering the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999 and 2004, and, practically, their military forces came to the Russian borders. On April 14, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin reminded to the eastern leaders that the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had an agreement on NATO non-expansion to the east, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union the agreement was “forgotten”.
* Photo by ‘Ana Paula Hirama [anapaulahrm]’, license: CC BY SA 2.0
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
