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Lawmaker blames Baltic countries, Romania, Poland, US, UK for Russia-NATO confrontation

Alexey Pushkov has called on NATO to return to the Founding Act signed in 1997
Russian lawmaker Alexey Pushkov AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
Russian lawmaker Alexey Pushkov
© AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

MOSCOW, May 24. /TASS/.  A Russian lawmaker said on Tuesday that the Baltic republics, Romania, Poland, Great Britain and the United States seem to be staking on military confrontation with Russia. 

"There is a group of states within NATO which are staking on military confrontation with Russia. These countries are the Baltic republics, Romania, Poland, Great Britain and the United States," Alexey Pushkov, the chairman of the international committee of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, said in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily.

Moscow, in his words, should take it "as a signal that resumption of relations with NATO is out of the agenda in a foreseeable future."

"At least until NATO abandons its new strategy of advance deployment and intimidation of Russia, until it returns to the Founding Act signed in 1997, until it brings it home to the fighting-mad ‘young European nations’ that they will never be let drag the Western alliance into a potential military conflict with Moscow," he said.

The lawmaker has also slammed statements by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg who says NATO will maintain a dialog with Russia as well as appeals for restoring activity of the Russia-NATO Council.

"All statements by Stoltenberg alleging that the activity of the Russia-NATO Council needs to be resumed, that the Alliance wants more dialog - this is nothing more than a fig-leaf designed to cover NATO's building up its military presence on the borders with Russia and getting ready for new aggressive decisions at the summit in Warsaw," the chairman of the State Duma international affairs committee, Alexei Pushkov, told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily.

The politician also mentioned the setting up of NATO bases in Poland and a growing military presence in the Baltic States as being out of tune with Stoltenberg’s words.

He expressed confidence that NATO activity was aimed at creating a new geopolitical reality. According to the Duma parliamentarian, NATO is trying to put Russia under constant military-political pressure and thus subdue it.

"Attempts are made through this pressure to strip us of independence, impose on us restricted sovereignty as it was in the 1990s. But today’s Russia will never agree to this," the parliamentarian said.