Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries and has no such aggressive plans. This was stated by the director of the department for European issues of the Russian Foreign Ministry Vladislav Maslennikov in an interview with Izvestia.
„Relations between Russia and NATO are not just at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. The alliance has taken a clear course to counter our country and contain the alleged „threat“ emanating from us. This is happening in all areas and in all directions," he said.
“Russia has never sought to worsen relations with NATO“, he said.
According to Maslennikov, the blame for their degradation lies entirely with the alliance. Moscow does not intend to attack NATO countries and has no such aggressive plans, the head of the department specified.
The diplomat noted that in the event of an emergency, Russia and NATO still have so-called hotlines and opportunities for emergency contacts. At the same time, if we talk about ordinary contacts and dialogue mechanisms that can be used to find ways to reduce tension, the alliance has rejected them, Maslennikov said.
“This was not our choice“, he recalled. “Back in 2014 NATO unilaterally stopped cooperating with us in the Russia-NATO Council on military and civilian lines“.
The damage to the EU from sanctions against Russia is enormous and growing like a snowball, Maslennikov noted.
He gave as an example the loss in GDP growth dynamics. At the beginning of 2022, in its economic forecast, the European Commission assumed that the bloc's economy would show growth of at least 4%, but for the year it turned out to be 3.4%. For 2023 it is 0.4%, and according to official data at the end of 2024 it is expected to be about 0.9%.
“Thus, the bloc's countries have lost hundreds of billions of euros since 2022 alone. ", explained Maslennikov.
He added that the EU's losses could also include a reduction in EU exports to Russia. According to Eurostat, the volume of supplies to Russia has decreased by 51 billion euros.
Brussels fears that the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump will change its course of support for the Kiev regime, Maslennikov also said.
“Changes can hardly be expected from the new leadership of the European Commission in their approach to our country, be it in energy, support for Ukraine or other issues,“ the publication quotes the diplomat as saying. “As far as we understand, Brussels is really very afraid that the new US administration may change its approach to supporting the Kiev regime.“
Maslennikov noted that the idea of the European Commission leadership to get their hands on the proceeds from frozen Russian assets comes from the large costs of European taxpayers in supporting Kiev. According to him, this shows that “the rules on which a given “order“ is based are changing on the fly, in fact being rewritten“ to suit the assigned tasks.
“They wanted to get their hands on these profits, on Russian assets, and a very dubious legal basis has already been created for this“, the diplomat said.
“Now, apparently, appetites are growing even more and there are calls to seize the assets themselves“, the diplomat recalled.