PRESS RELEASE
Russia Responds to NATO Summit: ‘The Confrontational Course Towards Russia Is Futile and Even Dangerous’
July 12, 2016 (EIRNS)—In the first official Russian response to the July 8-9 NATO summit in Warsaw, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a very stark statement on July 10, which noted that Russia-U.S. ties
"have been seriously damaged by unfriendly steps Washington has been taking since early 2014... Moscow is taking reciprocal steps in response to the U.S. attempt to inflict damage to us, including to dangerous actions in the military sphere."
The statement further warned that the "confrontational course towards Russia is futile and even dangerous." The Foreign Ministry added, however, that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would be going to Moscow for talks on July 14-15, and expressed the hope that these talks would "facilitate the improvement" of the atmosphere between the two countries.
Referring to the just-concluded NATO summit, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Alexander Grushko, stated to the press yesterday that
"Now, there is no balance of forces as it used to be before the beginning of all these NATO preparations. NATO is to be counterbalanced, certain counterbalancing steps are needed [which] will require steps to create the balance we used to have before NATO’s attempt to create a counter-potential at the borders that are now already NATO’s borders... We are dealing with a significant change in the military-political situation. There is no parity of forces which used to exist before all the latest NATO preparations."
Grushko reminded the media that
"We have an integrated rather than an isolated approach to this activity. Eventually, Europeans should realize that to have Russia as a potential enemy in the context of maintaining military potentials is a dead end."
