Russia suspends the work of its permanent mission to NATO from November 1
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that in response to NATO’s actions, Moscow will suspend the work of its permanent mission to the alliance since November 1. According to him, the accreditation of employees of the NATO military liaison mission in Moscow is also revoked and the information bureau of the alliance at the Belgian embassy in the Russian capital is terminated.
“Since 2014, NATO has been cutting any contacts with our mission to the limit.
There are no military contacts in general. As I already said, [в НАТО] – added the minister.
As explained in the Russian Foreign Ministry, now the maintenance of emergency contacts between NATO and Moscow will be carried out through the Russian government in Belgium.
The secretariat also stressed that the NATO secretariat was informed about the decision of Russia. However, for the time being, the alliance press service confirms that they have no official messages from the Russian side, although they take the information into account.
What does Moscow’s decision mean?
Relations between Russia and NATO have not been in the best condition for several years now. In fact, since 2014, there has been a permanent crisis, despite mutual calls for a transition to a constructive and substantive dialogue. The alliance is officially pursuing a policy of containing Moscow, justifying it by Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine. Russia, on the other hand, points to consistent attempts to move closer to the Russian borders.
Attempts to resume dialogue have so far come nowhere, in fact, there are no military and practical issues between the parties. However, the NATO military liaison mission in Moscow was retained for the interaction of the alliance with the Russian Ministry of Defense, and the information bureau informed the Russian public about the activities of the bloc and its relations with the Russian side.
These bodies, like Russia’s permanent mission to NATO, continued their work amid the most serious disagreements between the bloc and Moscow, including during the transition of Crimea under Russian jurisdiction, the expansion of the Skripal case in the West, or the Russian-Georgian military conflict.
As the editor-in-chief of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine Fedor Lukyanov told Gazeta.Ru, these offices are a rudiment of that era.
“For many reasons, this did not happen, and these missions have been used for a long time, because our relations have narrowed and shrunk. As for the discussion of military issues, for this there are relations between Russia and the United States.
They have a military component, it is quite solid, at the level of the heads of the general staff of the two states. This is quite enough, and if there is a need for a dialogue with some European countries in the order of the NATO bloc, then this can always be done in a working order at a bilateral level, “- the expert.
Dmitry Danilov, head of the European Security Department at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, confirmed that in recent years, contacts between Russia and NATO on the military non-military line have actually been suspended.
“We have no reason to maintain contacts with NATO at such a low level, unconstructive and ineffective level. Closing contact lines with NATO means closing windows of opportunity for dialogue. And it will be quite difficult to return from this point at least to the current state. We already had situations when we expelled the head of the NATO mission from Russia, but another military representative was appointed to this position. But now everything is different, and to restore at least some communications, we need good reasons, with justification of why this site should be restored, ”the expert added.
Why Russia has curtailed the mission to NATO
The Russian Foreign Ministry explained the decision as a response to another reduction of the Russian mission to NATO. On October 6, the bloc announced a reduction in the number of Russian missions under the alliance from 20 to 10 people, eight diplomats had their accreditation revoked, and two more vacancies were abolished. The alliance gave Russian diplomats until the end of October to leave Brussels.
This became the third reduction of the Russian mission in the past six years, such steps the alliance has already carried out in 2015 and 2018. In addition, diplomats to the bloc’s headquarters were severely limited along with contacts through the international secretariat.
According to Fyodor Lukyanov, the reduction of the Russian mission definitely influenced Moscow’s decision.
“The reason for the curtailment of the work of the NATO mission is the absolute exhaustion of its meaning. Keeping the mission of the alliance for this is not necessary, and what happened is just a legal statement of the current situation. The Alliance has chosen the position of freezing relations with Moscow, and the representative offices either exist to do something during the crisis, or they are not needed, ”the expert.
Dmitry Danilov partly agrees with this, according to him, Moscow has long offered to get out of the deadlock and start a substantive dialogue, but NATO actually doesn’t react in any way.
“The Alliance spoke about the need to establish strategic communication, but not a dialogue aimed at resolving any serious related parties. Russia, of course, does not like this situation, and there are many questions, ”the expert summed up.