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US, NATO undermine military and political situation in Euro-Atlantic Region, says diplomat

The head of Russia’s delegation pointed to the NATO expansion in the Balkan region, northern Europe, the Baltics, which used to be stable in military terms, but now turned into near-front zones

VIENNA, June 25. /TASS/. The current deterioration in the military and political situation in the Euro-Atlantic Region is a direct aftermath of the US and NATO actions on militarizing Europe and stepping up confrontation, Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Department for European Cooperation, Andrei Kelin, said on Tuesday.

"The military and political situation in the Euro-Atlantic Region continues worsening," Kelin told the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Annual Security Review Conference. "An artificial agenda of the day based on a myth about a threat coming from the East is being imposed on Europeans. NATO has been militarizing Europe for the fifth year in a row. Thousands of military on the so-called continuous rotational basis have emerged where they have never been, close to the borders with Russia. The scope and intensity of drills on provocative scenarios have grown."

The head of Russia’s delegation pointed to the ongoing NATO expansion in the Balkan region and in northern Europe and the Baltic states, which used to be stable in military terms, but now have been turned into near-front zones. "NATO is enhancing its military activity in the Black Sea," he noted. "New rapidly deployed joint force continents are being created. Cyber space has been declared as the fourth operation area by NATO, along with the air, the land and the sea. The skills of conducting war in a digital sphere are being trained up."

NATO is also trying to "involve in its effort to contain Russia the EU states, which are neutral and are not aligned with military unions, as well as partners in post-Soviet states," Kelin noted.

"The worsening military and political situation comes along with the collapse of the dialogue culture," he stressed. "Twitter diplomacy and unfounded accusations are becoming more popular. All this comes amid the actual refusal of NATO member-states to seriously discuss the ways of military and political de-escalation and even simple mechanisms of reducing the risks of unintentional incidents."

"We often hear that after 2014 the return to business as usual is impossible. And this is really so. If before 2014 everything had been fine, we would not have faced this situation. In order to end the crisis, there is the need to remove the blinkers of prejudice and start looking into the future," the diplomat said.

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