Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, just before the weekend’s Munich Security Conference, declared NATO to be Russia’s greatest threat.

The Kremlin declared a new doctrine citing NATO as a threat and strongly criticizing the decision to put American Patriot missiles in Poland and the anti-missile shield elements in Romania.

“I am shocked. This is not realistic,” stated NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, at the conference’s second day, Saturday. Rasmussen added that the shock is doubled by the fact that he met with Russian leaders not long ago to discuss NATO’s new strategic plan and NATO-Russia relations.

The declaration is the third such statement released since the fall of the Soviet Union – the first was signed by Boris Yeltsin in 1993 and the second by Vladimir Putin in 2000. NATO has never before been expressly listed as a threat to Russia.

“The Russian proposition is referring to the new European security structure of an ‘old’ and ‘new’ Europe with new and different rights,” says former Polish Foreign Minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld, adding that the enlargement of NATO changes the geopolitical situation in Europe.

Meanwhile, the Munich Security Conference saw some agreement as leaders from NATO and Russia declared a common interest in assuring a swift stabilization of Afghanistan. (mmj)

Source: Gazeta Wyborcza