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Kremlin: NATO is an instrument created for confrontation

According to the Kremlin spokesman, NATO enlargement is "the reason for a series of predictable, systematic and consecutive steps" to safeguard Russia's security interests

© EPA/FILIP SINGER

MOSCOW, May 23 /TASS/. Kremlin is still concerned with NATO’s enlargement towards Russian borders, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday.

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"NATO is a product of the tie of confrontation. It is an instrument created for confrontation.What contribution it can make to ensuring pan-European stability and security is disputable. We continue to be regretful over the expansion of NATO presence and the bloc’s ongoing enlargement towards our borders. This is a source of concern for Moscow and is the reason for a series of predictable, systematic and consecutive steps to safeguard its security interests under the current circumstances," Peskov said.

The official said the rhetoric of the North Atlantic Alliance is more and more similar to the time of the Cold War that the Kremlin believes is well behind.

"Judging from the rhetoric, it is returning by leaps and bounds to the very time that as we thought is already well behind," Peskov told reporters.

Peskov said NATO seems to "preserve this rhetoric." "So we were wrong when we thought that this remains in the past."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in one of his previous interviews that the forthcoming NATO summit in July would mark a turning point in NATO’s policy and would produce key decisions on how to adapt to the new security situation.

"We should strengthen NATO presence in Eastern Europe. It is going to be multinational," Stoltenberg said adding it would be a clear signal that NATO would consider an attack on one NATO country to be an attack on the whole alliance.

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