MOSCOW, June 13. /TASS/. Moscow is concerned about Washington’s plans to deploy a drone squadron to Poland, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters on Thursday.
"We are certainly concerned because it reflects attempts to raise military tensions in Europe, particularly on NATO’s so-called eastern flank," he said. "False excuses are used to implement programs that destabilize and escalate the situation," Ryabkov added.
"We have an increasing number of questions about how this kind of actions relate to the North Atlantic Alliance’s obligations under the NATO-Russia Founding Act on Mutual Relations, which says that the Alliance has ‘no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members.’ But now it is not a plan, it is reality," the senior Russian diplomat pointed out.
According to Ryabkov, NATO continues to show aggressive intentions behind false excuses. "In recent years, Russia maintained compliance with its international obligations and international law," he emphasized. "Attempts to depict the free choice made by people in Crimea and Sevastopol, who decided to realize their right to self-determination, as Russia’s destabilizing activities are at least unfair but at the end of the day they reflect NATO members’ policy aimed at bringing geopolitical changes to the region and creating unfavorable conditions for our development," the Russian deputy foreign minister said.
"We have repeatedly called on NATO countries to discuss ways to ease tensions along the line of contact between Russia and NATO, particularly through the OSCE, including the so-called Structured Dialogue on security issues," Ryabkov emphasized. "A new round of this dialogue is going to take place in Vienna, providing another opportunity to seriously discuss everything, but we don’t see any sign that NATO countries and the international secretariat of this group are ready to listen to us and respond adequately," he noted.