MOSCOW, July 11. /TASS/. The Kremlin is disappointed that Europe has not learned its lesson about moving NATO's infrastructure closer to Russia’s state borders, as this was one of the reasons for the current state of conflict, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
Peskov’s statement follows a proposal from Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda to set up permanent NATO bases near the state border of Russia and nix a relevant agreement between Russia and NATO from 1997.
The Russian presidential spokesman pointed to previous attempts by NATO to deploy its military infrastructure near Russian borders.
"This was one of the reasons that led to the current situation. It seems that Europeans do not realize this mistake," he continued.
"It’s extremely important to realize under the current conditions that the Russian military infrastructure has never shifted towards Western Europe, it has always moved in the opposite direction," Peskov said. "It’s certainly regrettable that the Europeans fail to realize this mistake."
Lithuanian President Nauseda said in an interview with the British daily The Times this week that the 1997 Russia-NATO agreement, which envisages non-deployment of nuclear weapons and substantial combat forces on the territory of new alliance members on a permanent basis, was "dead.".
On May 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on the denunciation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which came into force on June 9.
The treaty was signed in 1990 and was later updated in 1997. NATO countries did not ratify the modified version of the treaty, continuing to adhere to the 1990 provisions, which contain conventional arms norms based on the balance between NATO and the Warsaw Pact Organization.
As a result, Russia was forced to declare a moratorium on the implementation of the agreement in 2007. On March 11, 2015, Russia suspended its participation in meetings of the Joint Consultative Group on CFE Treaty, thus completing the process of suspending its membership in the treaty, but it continued to be a party to the treaty from a legal perspective.
Since then, Russia's interests in the Joint Consultative Group have been represented by Belarus.