Moscow slams Poland for backing NATO’s anti-Russia stance
Russia accuses NATO member Poland of supporting the Western military alliance's "desire" to contain Moscow’s military might.
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova condemned a call made by Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski a day earlier for scrapping the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security.
The roadmap for the Russia-NATO cooperation, which was signed in Paris in that year, stated that neither side views the other as adversary. Under the deal, NATO also agreed to refrain from any "additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces" that might alarm the Kremlin. The agreement also stipulates that NATO member states “have no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members” such as Poland.
Waszczykowski alleged on Wednesday that the agreement “was political in character, it was not legally binding, and was concluded in a different international context.”
The Russian official said such "extremely dangerous and extremely provocative" statements “are evidence of desire to make irreversible the alliance’s course towards military deterrence of our country.”
“They can be also regarded as an attempt to legitimize NATO’s attempts to change the existing balance of forces in Europe," she noted.
Earlier this month, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg signaled a potential transition from the policy NATO has been maintaining vis-à-vis Moscow since the 1997 deal, suggesting that the alliance might station permanent military units in its member states against what it called threats from Russia.
"The important thing is that we have military presence," the NATO head said, adding, "To some extent, it is artificial to distinguish between occasional military presence and other kinds that are more persistent."
Relations between Russia and NATO strained after Ukraine’s Crimea region integrated into the Russian Federation following a referendum last March. On April 1, 2014, the military alliance ended all practical cooperation with Russia over the ensuing crisis in Ukraine.
The United States and its allies accuse Russia of supporting the pro-Moscow fighters in eastern Ukraine, and having supplied them with military aid, reinforcements, and resources. Moscow has denied the charges, saying any support from Moscow has only been of a humanitarian nature.
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