Russia-NATO relations DEGRADING, causing global security to decline – Defense Minister

Russia is ready to work with NATO despite the alliance’s buildup near its borders and unfounded claims of a Russian threat, but all of Moscow’s proposals are falling on deaf ears, Defense Minister, Sergey Shoigu, has warned.

“Everything isn’t just halted, but degrading every year,” Shoigu told Rossiya 1 broadcaster when asked about the current state of Russia-NATO relations.

There was “quite active cooperation” between Russia and the bloc just five years ago, but “now our partners, along with the US, of course, are withdrawing from most of the agreements. The security space is getting narrower and narrower,” he pointed out.

NATO is reluctant to work with Russia, even on such a pressing issue as fighting terrorism in Syria, the minister said. “We keep saying that we’ll do everything faster and more effective together. But all we could agree upon is avoiding some kind of incident between our aviation and the aviation of the coalition.”

Russia’s new ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, recently addressed the country’s ties with NATO, saying that the US-led military bloc has “a lot of inertia in its work… It’s going along the lines that have been assigned years ago.”

The Cold War ended decades ago, but somehow NATO “continues to work against us in a confrontational mood,” he said, in an interview with RT’s Going Underground program.

“Confrontation is dangerous and new and new monies, which are being allocated to so-called defense, but, in fact, its for a buildup of armaments along our borders – this doesn’t bring détente and this is bad for European security,” Kelin said.

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