MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is not qualified to judge Russian pilots and captains, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to a TASS reporter’s question.

"Rutte’s insulting remarks about Russian pilots and captains show that he knows nothing about them. Otherwise, he would not have been critical," Peskov said, commenting on a statement from Rutte who said Russia’s pilots don’t know how to fly a fighter jet and that the captains of the ships can’t anchor.

At a news conference after a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, the bloc’s secretary general said: "Let's not overstate what Russia is capable of. And we know that their fighter jet pilots are famously not successful in steering these fighter jets, and their captains do not know how to lower an anchor." He referred to accusations by NATO’s Baltic allies against Russia for allegedly breaching the alliance’s airspace and damaging communications cables in the Baltic Sea.