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What next for NATO-Russia relations?

PR dla Zagranicy
John Beauchamp 04.04.2014 14:30
  • What next for NATO-Russia relations? John Beauchamp reports.
On the 65th anniversary of the signing of the Washington Treaty, cracks seem to be forming as to how to tackle the alliance’s defence in its eastern fringes, especially Poland.
Russian Navy sailors stand on a pier near the Russian submarine B-871 Alrosa (L), former Ukrainian submarine 'Zaporozhye' project 641 (C) and Russian Romeo Class Submarine PZS-50 (R) moored in the bay of Sevastopol, Crimea, 03 April 2014. Ukrainian submarine 'Zaporozhye' may be handed over to Ukraine's Navy for further use or scrapping, the InterfaRussian Navy sailors stand on a pier near the Russian submarine B-871 Alrosa (L), former Ukrainian submarine 'Zaporozhye' project 641 (C) and Russian Romeo Class Submarine PZS-50 (R) moored in the bay of Sevastopol, Crimea, 03 April 2014. Ukrainian submarine 'Zaporozhye' may be handed over to Ukraine's Navy for further use or scrapping, the Interfa

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A Ukrainian tank in action during a training session on the military shooting range called Desna, 100 km north-east from Kiev, Ukraine, 02 April 2014. Photo: PAP/EPA/ANDREY SINITSYN

After a meeting this week found NATO foreign ministers at odds with each other on whether to station troops in Poland, Russia is also becoming uneasy at the possibility of a heightened NATO presence in the region, as John Beauchamp reports.

"Russia's agression against Ukraine is the gravest threat to European security in a generation," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after the foreign ministers' meeting.

However, Rasmussen's heightened rhetoric is unfounded, according to Dmitry Babich, a political analyst from state-backed Voice of Russia who says that "Russia has no ambitions to become another world power, it has ambition to stay a regional power."

"If NATO starts to build its policies on considering Russia 'Enemy Number 1', this will be a policy built on the wrong foundations," Babich adds.

Meanwhile, both the German and Dutch foreign ministers have come out against stationing their troops so close to Russia, citing the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, which states that both parties do not see each other as adversaries.

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