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NATO’s Russia strategy validates halting official dialogue, Kremlin says

Dmitry Peskov emphasized that Moscow never harbored any illusions about NATO’s essence and this essence had yet again been confirmed

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov Mikhail Metzel/TASS

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MOSCOW, October 22. /TASS/. NATO’s strategy on containing Russia validates Moscow’s decision to cease official dialogue with the alliance, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday.

"This vividly confirms the correctness of the decisions by the Russian Federation adopted several days earlier regarding the termination of official dialogue. Any dialogue under such conditions is simply unnecessary and NATO’s concept confirms it," he said.

The press secretary emphasized that Moscow never harbored any illusions about NATO’s essence and this essence has yet again been confirmed. "The alliance was not created for peace, it was created for confrontation, it was conceived and planned for this purpose. The Russian Federation undertakes measures to protect its own interests on a regular basis," he explained. The spokesman added that this process would continue.

On October 6, NATO decided to cut the size of the Russian mission to the alliance in half from 20 to 10 people, while revoking the accreditation of some eight diplomats and having two more vacancies eliminated. NATO gave the Russian envoys until late October to leave Brussels. In response, on October 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow would suspend the work of its permanent mission to NATO starting in early November following NATO’s move to withdraw the accreditation of the Russian envoys.

Furthermore, the operations of the NATO Military Liaison Mission Moscow and the NATO Information Office in Moscow will be frozen.

On October 21, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO defense ministers said that the new defense concept of the EU, the EU’s Strategic Compass, envisages "threats emanating from Russia.".

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