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Russia’s fears in view of NATO threats justified — expert

The expert believes that the call for long-term guarantees is not empty talk

MOSCOW, November 29. /TASS/. Russia’s fears over NATO’s threats to its security are quite reasonable, the research director of the Valdai discussion club, Fyodor Lukyanov said in a discussion of Russia-NATO relations on the Valdai club’s platform on Monday.

"Possibly, NATO has never set a task of threatening Russia for decades. Possibly, it does not pursue such an aim today. It is possible to talk on and on that the Russians have paranoia and that they have no idea of what NATO is all about, but when an alliance of which you are not a member and will never be a member begins to expand, and when this alliance starts to use military force, I cannot imagine a single government that would react to all this with a kind smile," Lukyanov said.

About Russian President Vladimir Putin’s remarks at the Foreign Ministry’s board meeting certain guarantees in the field of security must be created Lukyanov said that this call "stems from the need for entering into a fundamental discussion what principles the European security will be based on in the future, because the principles that were established 30 years ago provoke tensions."

"It may sound terrible and catastrophic, but it is a hard fact we can do nothing about. I believe that the call for long-term guarantees is not empty talk. It is a tremendous intellectual challenge to all of us, but this is an entirely different matter," he added.

Lukyanov said that the guarantees in question were to take shape as fundamental decisions, and not fine words.

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