MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. NATO’s decision to send additional forces to Eastern Europe over the situation in Ukraine stems from the wish to earn political dividends and "calm down" the East European members of the alliance, as well as to tease Russia, the board chairman of the Foundation of Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club, Andrey Bystritsky, told TASS on Monday.

"All this bears an imprint of political propaganda and of attempts at influencing the minds of one’s own population and the population of Eastern Europe. The way I see it, under a great pressure from the countries already admitted to NATO in Eastern Europe they are feeling very nervous and wish to reap political dividends," he said.

"We have before us a political propaganda campaign that pursues several aims: to calm down the population in their own countries, in any case, that part or the population that feels nervous, to make it clear to the East European partners that they are not about to be abandoned, and to a certain extent to tease Russia," he said, adding that NATO’s mode of behavior looked somewhat chaotic.

NATO’s current activity in Eastern Europe, Bystritsky believes, is also a means of fanning tensions ahead of the United States’ expected reply to Moscow’s security guarantee proposals.

"I am absolutely certain that the underlying reason for all this is the United States will have to answer Russia’s proposals. It is obvious that the Western elites know well enough that Russia will not attack Ukraine," Bystritsky stressed.

Lately, the Western countries and also Kiev have been speculating about the risks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed such rumors as groundless fanning of tensions. He stressed that Russia was of no threat to anyone. At the same time, Peskov pointed to a certain risk of provocations that might be staged to back up such claims and warned that any attempts at handling the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would entail dire consequences.