Russia takes measures in response to NATO expansion

BRUSSELS, December 3. /TASS/. Russia has begun to take measures in response to the NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, Russian Permanent Representative to NATO Alexander Grushko said on Wednesday. “Measures are already being taken, and they will be well-adjusted and based on an analysis of what NATO is doing in this region,” he said in an interview to Russian reporters in Brussels. Grushko said NATO had recognized the fact that flights of Russian aircraft first of all over international waters of the Baltic Sea were in conformity with international law. “Practically all the defence ministers who were asked recognized that all the Russian flights were carried out in full compliance with international law, were routine, did not create any threat to the states and thus were not viewed as threatening and destabilizing,” he said. Speaking about NATO eastward expansion, Grushko said there were no real reasons to deploy additional NATO forces in Eastern Europe, reinforce the strength and conduct exercises more frequently. NATO actively uses the crisis in Ukraine as an ideological explanation to prove the alliance is needed under new conditions. The main aim is to intensify military activity and increase financing, he said. By the way, the exercises planned for 2015 (in Portugal and Spain) will be, perhaps, the first post-cold war military training involving up to 40,000 troops, he said. Read more