Russia (bbabo.net) - NATO's eastward expansion runs counter to the collectively agreed principle of the indivisibility of security in Europe. This was stated by the Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov.

"The transatlantic bloc itself is a vestige of the Cold War," Antonov said in a comment to Newsweek magazine, posted on the embassy's official Facebook page.

Earlier, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, responded to a statement by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who said that the West had never promised not to expand NATO. She recalled the chronology of the Alliance's assurances of non-expansion. The diplomat pointed to the documents on the negotiations on the unification of Germany in 1990, cited the famous statement of US Secretary of State James Baker "not an inch to the east", which sounded at the meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, as well as other statements of Western partners.

The meeting of the Russia-NATO Council will be held in Brussels on January 12. This is stated in the corresponding statement of the alliance. It is expected that the agenda will include issues related to European security, in particular - with Ukraine.

bbabo.Net