On February 16-17, a meeting of the NATO Council at the level of defense ministers was held in Brussels. It was not the first time that the Russian theme prevailed. We were accused of continuing to build up our military presence, not only “around” Ukraine, but also in Belarus. The Alliance is concerned about the Russian-Belarusian exercises, the movements of our troops on our territory. At the same time, NATO members clearly do not follow the news – after the exercises, Russian troops are already returning to their permanent locations.
The alliance intends to “punish” us for this with an additional build-up of forces on the “eastern flank”, the deployment of new naval and air components, and the expansion of cooperation with Georgia and Ukraine, for which the door to NATO remains “open”.
Once again, NATO is using the tactics of “escalation for the sake of de-escalation.” Historical experience shows that after reducing tensions, the alliance never reduces its military presence. Judging by the fact that detailed plans for new NATO multinational battalion groups on the “eastern flank” will be developed only by the next, May meeting of the defense Ministries of the bloc countries, NATO’s military capabilities near the Russian borders will only increase in the future.
The military-political situation in Europe continues to deteriorate. The Russian proposals on security guarantees are aimed at correcting this situation, to which we have not received a clear answer from the alliance. We hope that negotiations on them will continue. We will insist on the termination of NATO’s provocative policy of expansion, the refusal to deploy offensive weapons threatening us near our borders, and the return of the configuration of the alliance’s forces to the positions of 1997.
