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BRUSSELS, September 4. /TASS/. NATO’s decision to create command-and-control centres in East European countries will fuel confrontation in relations with Russia, Russia’s NATO envoy Alexander Grushko said on Friday.
"It is nakedly clear that the opening of these centers in six East European member-countries of NATO will reaffirm the alliance’s military machinery has been retooled to the task of warding off a mythical threat from the East," he said.
That decision, which is part and parcel of NATO’s measures to strengthen the eastern flank, will be fueling the artificially created climate of confrontation in relations with Russia, he added.
Grushko believes that "it runs counter to the genuine interests of pan-European and regional security, which can be ensured only on the equitable and collective basis."
"Inside NATO those forces which would like to make irrversible the process of ‘getting back to the roots’, in other worlds, the task of ‘containing’ Russia, are gaining the upper hand. This is a dead end. It leads to higher tensions strictly in accordance with Cold War era templates," Grushko said.