MOSCOW, August o4./ITAR-TASS/. NATO Secretary-General is trying to shift responsibility for deteriorating crisis in Ukraine to Russia, ignoring its clarifications — Russian Foreign Ministry says.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen keeps making “far-fetched” accusations against Russia which indicate that NATO is still unable to separate long-term security and stability interests in the Euro-Atlantic region from its own momentary goals, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

In his recent interview to Midi Libre, a French daily newspaper in Montpellier, Rasmussen “once again is trying, in a confrontational manner, to shift responsibility for the deteriorating crisis in Ukraine to Russia”, the ministry said.

“Like a broken record, statements are made about ‘the Russian aggression’ and ‘spheres of influence’, fervently reproducing other Cold War-era propaganda cliches to justify the notorious need to ‘close ranks’ in the face of an imaginary external threat to NATO countries, increase military expenditures and shore up the alliance’s relevancy in the 21st century,” the ministry said.

It said that before the first results of the probe into the MH17 plane crash become known, Rasmussen “has given a politicised verdict that militiamen are allegedly responsible for the accident”.