MOSCOW, June 20. /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources believes the statement of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen about an anti-shale campaign allegedly organized by Russia is at least strange and absurd, the ministry's head Sergei Donskoi has written in his Facebook post.

Earlier Rasmussen accused Russia of establishing contacts with environmental protection activists with the aim to prevent work on shale gas fields in Europe. According to the NATO secretary-general, Moscow allegedly wants to keep Europe dependant on Russian supplies.

As for extraction of shale gas in Ukraine, the Ministry of Natural Resources has repeatedly expressed its view openly and responsibly about risks for human health and environment, Donskoi notes.

"The statement is groundless. It is farfetched and funny," the minister continued.

"It is clear confirmation of the fact that the ideology of NATO officials is developing according to cold war time traditions. It is another theory of a plot voiced by the NATO chief and it sounds as at least a strange, absurd and primitive assessment. Despite the existing disagreements in approaches to events in the world, we continue cooperation with the EU in all the areas related to environmental protection and stable development.

"We really seek to cooperate with public ecological organizations, using their criticism addressed to us and sometimes radical views to correct our decisions," Donskoi notes.

"What Rasmussen says is indicative of the attitude toward non-governmental organizations as a means to achieve political goals. We believe such an approach is inadmissible and contradictory to principles of work of a modern democratic state," the Russian minister notes.