MOSCOW, June 17. /TASS/. Head of Russia's Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Konstantin Kosachev has said that the fact that NATO leaders are actively exploiting the issue of "Russian aggression" can be attributed to the alliance’s desire to regain the "lost reason for existence." He commented in such a way on the article by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Philip Breedlove, head of US European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, in the Wall Street Journal.
According to Stoltenberg and Breedlove, the Allied Shield NATO exercises in eastern Europe "will demonstrate that NATO is able to deploy combat forces anywhere within NATO’s territory within days."
"Extinguishing the fire by adding fuel to it — new weapons closer to the flash point of the conflict — is the height of irresponsibility to all peoples of Europe. But the alliance seems to have 'caught the wave,' it at last regained the lost reason for existence, and looks alarmingly determined to go to great lengths," Kosachev wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday. "The question is what these lengths are. Is it another large-scale military conflict?"
Kosachev writes he is confident that NATO has no real excuses for countering Russia, except for "worried eastern European countries", whose fear was induced artificially by constantly repeating the horror stories of "an aggressive Russia." According to Kosachev, NATO cannot explain "why Russia should attack these countries. There are no explanations with the exception of abstract statements that Russia is basically aggressive and attacks indiscriminately. It likes to fight for the sake of fighting, so to say."
"Otherwise, they would have to admit that what is going on in Ukraine is a direct consequence of the actions by the West, which upset the security and power balance in Europe by its attempt to lay hands on Ukraine," Kosachev wrote.