MOSCOW: Russia said on Wednesday that neither it nor NATO countries would gain if Russia-NATO joint activity to combat present-day threats to international security were suspended, a Russian news agency reported.
“The decision of the NATO Council at the level of the foreign ministers to suspend cooperation with Russia both on military and civilian aspects creates an effect of ‘deja vu’,” the Russian foreign ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said.
“The wording of the statement rather reminds us of verbal sparring of the Cold War times, while the decision itself brings us six years back, when Brussels ‘froze’ the work of the Russia-NATO Council,” Lukashevich added.
However, the NATO later initiated a return to cooperation with Russia, Lukashevich added.
Earlier, the NATO foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels decided to suspend all civilian and military cooperation with Russia over the Ukraine issue.
“We have decided to suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation between NATO and Russia. Our political dialogue in the NATO-Russia Council can continue, as necessary, at the Ambassadorial level and above, to allow us to exchange views, first and foremost on this crisis,” the 28-nation bloc said in a joint statement.
