Back to the 80s and 90s of the last century. Russia begins the process to destroy any ties with NATO. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced this Monday that it will close its representation before NATO in the Belgian capital, Brussels. This is due to the Kremlin's response to the expulsion of eight of its diplomats accredited to the organization accused of espionage. In this context of tension between Russia and NATO, the Russian Foreign Ministry has withdrawn the authorization of diplomatic stay for NATO workers in Moscow, reciprocal diplomatic coups. "If the members of NATO have an urgent matter, they can contact our ambassador in Belgium," ditch Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, recently at a press conference.
On October 6, the Western military alliance ordered the expulsion of eight diplomats from the
Russian representation to NATO for being spies, or as they declared in published documents, "undeclared intelligence officers." From Moscow they throw balls out and reject the accusations, ensuring that the Alliance measure hurts the prospects of normalization in relations with the military organization of which the United States, a good part of the European countries and Turkey, where the latter country are members, are members. has an important link with Russia following the purchase of Russian-made defense systems.
The step that the Kremlin has taken this Monday shows the deterioration of the ties between the
Government of Vladimir Putin and the Secretary General of NATO, the Swede Jens
Stoltenberg. There were 10 officers in the diplomatic mission to the Alliance, based in Brussels.
The expulsion of diplomats from the Alliance's information office and liaison mission in Moscow - which housed the Belgian Embassy - decreed by Russia further undermines the capacity for diplomatic dialogue between the former enemies of the Cold War. NATO has remarked on Monday that it has not yet received notification from Russia about the latest measures but that it "takes note" of Lavrov's words released by the media, reports the international agency Reuters.
The Russian Foreign Ministry assures that the reprisals, which were carried out on November 1, are due to the "hostile actions" of the Atlantic Alliance. "NATO is not interested in fair dialogue and joint work," Lavrov assured this Monday. "If that's the case, then we don't see the need to keep pretending that changes in the foreseeable future are possible."
NATO severed most ties with Russia in 2014, following the annexation of the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine in a referendum deemed illegal by the international community, and their relationship was further affected by the Kremlin's political and military support for the separatists. pro-Russians in the Donbas conflict in Ukraine. However, some ties and communication channels remained, which have been broken by the latest tensions.
The alarms sounded this spring, when Russia deployed tens of thousands of military personnel along the borders with Ukraine in response to what it defined as "provocative actions" by NATO near its borders. The deployment put the Alliance and the EU on alert. NATO is targeting its permanent presence in the Black Sea, the scene of friction between the two blocs, with the approach of Russian planes to the Ukrainian airspace and of the Balkans Romania and Bulgaria. All this without forgetting the unresolved conflict in Georgia.