Relations between the NATO military alliance and the Russian Federation were established in 1991 within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. In 1994, Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program, and since that time, NATO and Russia have signed several important agreements on cooperation.
The Russia–NATO Council was established in 2002 for handling security issues and joint projects. Cooperation between Russia and NATO now develops in several main sectors, including: fighting terrorism, military cooperation, cooperation on Afghanistan (including transportation by Russia of non-military International Security Assistance Force freight (see NATO logistics in the Afghan War), and fighting the local drug production), industrial cooperation, and weapons non-proliferation.
On 1 April 2014, NATO unanimously decided to suspend all practical co-operation with the Russian Federation in response to the Annexation of Crimea, but the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) was not suspended. On 18 February 2017, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said he supported the resumption of military cooperation with the NATO alliance. In late March 2017, the Council met in advance of a NATO Foreign Ministers conference in Brussels, Belgium.
In October 2021, following an incident in which NATO expelled eight Russian officials from its Brussels headquarters, Russia suspended its mission to NATO and ordered the closure of NATO's office in Moscow.
Post-Cold War cooperation
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany, NATO and the Soviet Union (now Russia) began to engage in talks on several levels, including a continued push for arms control treaties such as the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze made a first visit to NATO Headquarters on 19 December 1989, followed by informal talks in 1990 between NATO and Soviet military leaders. In June 1990 the message from Turnberry has been described as "the first step in the evolution of [modern] NATO-Russia relations". The NATO Secretary General, Manfred Wörner, would visit Moscow in July 1990, to discuss future cooperation, a first for NATO–Russia relations.
In 1991, as the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russian president Boris Yeltsin sent a letter to NATO, suggesting that Russia's long-term aim was to join NATO.
Formal contacts and cooperation between Russia and NATO began in 1991, within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (later renamed Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council), and were further deepened as Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program on 22 June 1994.
Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, 1997
On 27 May 1997, at the NATO Summit in Paris, France, NATO and Russia signed the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, a road map for would-be NATO-Russia cooperation.
It set up a new forum: the "NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council" (PJC) as a venue for consultations, cooperation and consensus building. There was no provision granting NATO or Russia any veto powers over the actions of the other. NATO said it had no plans to station nuclear weapons in the new member states or send in new permanent military forces. The parties stated they did not see each other as adversaries, and, "based on an enduring political commitment undertaken at the highest political level, will build together a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area on the principles of democracy and cooperative security".
Cooperation, 2009–2014
In December 2009, NATO approached Russia for help in Afghanistan, requesting permission for the alliance to fly cargo (including possibly military ones) over Russian territory to Afghanistan, and to provide more helicopters for the Afghan armed forces. However Russia only allowed transit of non-military supplies through its territory.
On 6 June 2011, NATO and Russia participated in their first ever joint fighter jet exercise, dubbed "Vigilant Skies 2011". Since the Cold War, this is only the second joint military venture between the alliance and Russia, with the first being a joint submarine exercise which begun on 30 May 2011.
In April 2012, there were some protests in Russia over their country's involvement with NATO, conducted by the leftist activist alliance Left Front.
Suspension of cooperation and military build-up
Hostile threats and measures
Russia engaged in hostile threats or actions against Moldova/Transnistria (1992–2016); Georgia (2004–2012); Estonia (2006–2007); Ukraine (2014–present); Syria (2015-present), and Turkey (2015–2016), among others.
2014
In early March 2014, tensions increased between NATO and Russia as a result of Russia's move to annex Crimea: NATO urged Russia to stop its actions and said it supported Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. On 1 April 2014, NATO issued a statement by NATO foreign ministers that announced it had "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 statement condemned Russia's "illegal military intervention in Ukraine and Russia's violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity".
In spring, the Russian Defense Ministry announced it was planning to deploy additional forces in Crimea as part of beefing up its Black Sea Fleet, including re-deployment by 2016 of nuclear-capable Tupolev Tu-22M3 ('Backfire') long-range strike bombers — which used to be the backbone of Soviet naval strike units during the Cold War, but were later withdrawn from bases in Crimea. Such moves alarmed NATO: in November NATO's top military commander US General Philip Breedlove said that the alliance was "watching for indications" amid fears over the possibility that Russia could move any of its nuclear arsenal to the peninsula. In December, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said this would be a legitimate action as "Crimea has now become part of a country that has such weapons under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons."
At the NATO Wales summit in early September, the NATO-Ukraine Commission adopted a Joint Statement that "strongly condemned Russia's illegal and illegitimate self-declared "annexation" of Crimea and its continued and deliberate destabilization of eastern Ukraine in violation of international law"; this position was re-affirmed in the early December statement by the same body.
A report released in November highlighted the fact that close military encounters between Russia and the West (mainly NATO countries) had jumped to Cold War levels, with 40 dangerous or sensitive incidents recorded in the eight months alone, including a near-collision between a Russian reconnaissance plane and a passenger plane taking off from Denmark in March with 132 passengers on board. An unprecedented increase in Russian air force and naval activity in the Baltic region prompted NATO to step up its longstanding rotation of military jets in Lithuania. Similar Russian air force increased activity in the Asia-Pacific region that relied on the resumed use of the previously abandoned Soviet military base at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. In March 2015, Russia's defense minister Sergey Shoygu said that Russia's long-range bombers would continue patrolling various parts of the world and expand into other regions.
In July, the U.S. formally accused Russia of having violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by testing a prohibited medium-range ground-launched cruise missile (presumably R-500, a modification of Iskander) and threatened to retaliate accordingly. In early June 2015, the U.S. State Department reported that Russia had failed to correct the violation of the I.N.F. Treaty; the U.S. government was said to have made no discernible headway in making Russia so much as acknowledge the compliance problem.
The US government's October 2014 report claimed that Russia had 1,643 nuclear warheads ready to launch (an increase from 1,537 in 2011) – one more than the US, thus overtaking the US for the first time since 2000; both countries' deployed capacity being in violation of the 2010 New START treaty that sets a cap of 1,550 nuclear warheads. Likewise, even before 2014, the US had set about implementing a large-scale program, worth up to a trillion dollars, aimed at overall revitalization of its atomic energy industry, which includes plans for a new generation of weapon carriers and construction of such sites as the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico and the National Security Campus in south Kansas City.
At the end of 2014, Putin approved a revised national military doctrine, which listed NATO's military buildup near the Russian borders as the top military threat.
The Spearhead Force
On 2 December 2014, NATO foreign ministers announced an interim Spearhead Force (the 'Very High Readiness Joint Task Force') created pursuant to the Readiness Action Plan agreed on at the NATO Wales summit in early September 2014 and meant to enhance NATO presence in the eastern part of the alliance. In June 2015, in the course of military drills held in Poland, NATO tested the new rapid reaction force for the first time, with more than 2,000 troops from nine states taking part in the exercise. Upon the end of the drills, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the Spearhead Force deployed in Eastern Europe would be increased to 40,000 troops.
2015
In early February 2015, NATO diplomats said that concern was growing in NATO over Russia's nuclear strategy and indications that Russia's nuclear strategy appeared to point to a lowering of the threshold for using nuclear weapons in any conflict. The conclusion was followed by British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon saying that Britain must update its nuclear arsenal in response to Russian modernization of its nuclear forces. Later in February, Fallon said that Putin could repeat tactics used in Ukraine in Baltic members of the NATO alliance; he also said: "NATO has to be ready for any kind of aggression from Russia, whatever form it takes. NATO is getting ready." Fallon noted that it was not a new cold war with Russia, as the situation was already "pretty warm".
In March 2015, Russia, citing NATO's de facto breach of the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, said that the suspension of its participation in it, announced in 2007, was now "complete" through halting its participation in the consulting group on the Treaty.
Early April 2015 saw the publication of the leaked information ascribed to semi-official sources within the Russian military and intelligence establishment, about Russia's alleged preparedness for a nuclear response to certain inimical non-nuclear acts on the part of NATO; such implied threats were interpreted as "an attempt to create strategic uncertainty" and undermine Western political cohesion. Also in this vein, Norway's defense minister, Ine Eriksen Søreide, noted that Russia had "created uncertainty about its intentions".
In June 2015, an independent Russian military analyst was quoted by a major American newspaper as saying: "Everybody should understand that we are living in a totally different world than two years ago. In that world, which we lost, it was possible to organize your security with treaties, with mutual-trust measures. Now we have come to an absolutely different situation, where the general way to ensure your security is military deterrence."
On 16 June 2015, Tass quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksey Meshkov as saying that "none of the Russia-NATO programs that used to be at work are functioning at a working level."
In late June 2015, while on a trip to Estonia, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said the US would deploy heavy weapons, including tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery, in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. The move was interpreted by Western commentators as marking the beginning of a reorientation of NATO's strategy. It was called by a senior Russian Defence Ministry official "the most aggressive act by Washington since the Cold War" and criticised by the Russian Foreign Ministry as "inadequate in military terms" and "an obvious return by the United States and its allies to the schemes of 'the Cold War'".
On its part, the U.S. expressed concern over Putin's announcement of plans to add over 40 new ballistic missiles to Russia's nuclear weapons arsenal in 2015. American observers and analysts, such as Steven Pifer, noting that the U.S. had no reason for alarm about the new missiles, provided that Russia remained within the limits of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), viewed the ratcheting-up of nuclear saber-rattling by Russia's leadership as mainly bluff and bluster designed to conceal Russia's weaknesses; however, Pifer suggested that the most alarming motivation behind this rhetoric could be Putin seeing nuclear weapons not merely as tools of deterrence, but as tools of coercion.
Meanwhile, at the end of June 2015, it was reported that the production schedule for a new Russian MIRV-equipped, super-heavy thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missile Sarmat, intended to replace the obsolete Soviet-era SS-18 Satan missiles, was slipping. Also noted by commentators were the inevitable financial and technological constraints that would hamper any real arms race with the West, if such course were to be embarked on by Russia.
NATO-Russia tensions rose further after, on 24 November 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that allegedly violated Turkish airspace while on a mission in northwestern Syria. Russian officials denied that the plane had entered Turkish airspace. Shortly after the incident, NATO called an emergency meeting to discuss the matter.
On 2 December 2015, NATO member states formally invited Montenegro to join the alliance, which drew a response from Russia that it would suspend cooperation with that country.
2016
A June 2016 Levada poll found that 68% of Russians think that deploying NATO troops in the former Eastern bloc countries bordering Russia is a threat to Russia.
Shortly before a meeting of the Russia–NATO Council at the level of permanent representatives on 20 April, the first such meeting since June 2014, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov cited what he saw as "an unprecedented military buildup since the end of the Cold War and the presence of NATO on the so-called eastern flank of the alliance with the goal of exerting military and political pressure on Russia for containing it", and said "Russia does not plan and will not be drawn into a senseless confrontation and is convinced that there is no reasonable alternative to mutually beneficial all-European cooperation in security sphere based on the principle of indivisibility of security relying on the international law."
After the meeting, the Russian ambassador to NATO said Russia was feeling comfortable without having co-operative relations with the alliance; he noted that at the time Russia and NATO had no positive agenda to pursue. The NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said: "NATO and Russia have profound and persistent disagreements. Today's meeting did not change that."
The opening of the first site of the NATO missile defence system in Deveselu, Romania, in May 2016 led Russia to reiterate its position that the U.S.-built system undermined Russia's security, posed "direct threat to global and regional security", was in violation of the INF, and that measures were "being taken to ensure the necessary level of security for Russia".
The NATO summit held in Warsaw in July 2016 approved the plan to move four battalions totaling 3,000 to 4,000 troops on a rotating basis by early 2017 into the Baltic states and eastern Poland and increase air and sea patrols to reassure allies who were once part of the Soviet bloc. The adopted Communique explained that the decision was meant "to unambiguously demonstrate, as part of our overall posture, Allies' solidarity, determination, and ability to act by triggering an immediate Allied response to any aggression." The summit reaffirmed NATO's previously taken decision to "suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation between NATO and Russia, while remaining open to political dialogue with Russia".
Heads of State and Government "condemned Russia's ongoing and wide-ranging military build-up" in Crimea and expressed concern over "Russia's efforts and stated plans for further military build-up in the Black Sea region". They also stated that Russia's "significant military presence and support for the regime in Syria", and its military build-up in the Eastern Mediterranean "posed further risks and challenges for the security of Allies and others". NATO leaders agreed to step up support for Ukraine: in a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, the Allied leaders reviewed the security situation with president of Ukraine Poroshenko, welcomed the government's plans for reform, and endorsed a Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine aimed to "help make Ukraine's defence and security institutions more effective, efficient and accountable".
At the meeting of the Russia–NATO Council at the level of permanent representatives that was held shortly after the Warsaw summit, Russia admonished NATO against intensifying its military activity in the Black Sea. Russia also said it agreed to have its military aircraft pilots flying over the Baltic region turn on the cockpit transmitters, known as transponders, if NATO planes acted likewise.
Mid-July 2016, Russia's military announced that a regiment of long-range surface-to-air S-400 weapon system would be deployed in the city of Feodosia in Crimea in August that year, beefing up Russia's anti-access/area-denial capabilities around the peninsula.
2017
In July 2017, the NATO-Russia Council met in Brussels. Following the meeting, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Allies and Russia had had a "frank and constructive discussion" on Ukraine, Afghanistan, and transparency and risk reduction. The two sides briefed each other on the upcoming Russia's/Belarus′ Zapad 2017 exercise, and NATO's Exercise Trident Javelin 2017, respectively.
At the end of August 2017, NATO declared that NATO's four multinational battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were fully operational, a move that was implemented pursuant to the decision taken at the 2016 Warsaw summit.
In 2017, UK Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon warned that Russia's Zapad 2017 exercise in Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast was "designed to provoke us". Fallon falsely claimed that the number of Russian troops taking part in exercise could reach 100,000.
2018
In February 2018, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated: "We don't see any threat [from Russia] against any NATO ally and therefore, I'm always careful speculating too much about hypothetical situations." Stoltenberg welcomed the 2018 Russia–United States summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Helsinki, Finland. He said NATO is not trying to isolate Russia.
2019
In April 2019, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg warned a joint session of the U.S. Congress of the threat posed by "“a more assertive" Russia to the alliances members, which included a massive military buildup, threats to sovereign states, the use of nerve agents and cyberattacks.
2021
On 13 April 2021, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called on Russia to halt its buildup of forces near the border with Ukraine. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said that Russia has deployed troops to its western borders for "combat training exercises" in response to NATO "military activities that threaten Russia." Defender-Europe 21, one of the largest NATO-led military exercises in Europe in decades, began in mid-March 2021 and will last until June 2021. It will include "nearly simultaneous operations across more than 30 training areas" in Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and other countries.
On 6 October 2021, NATO decided to expel eight Russian diplomats, described as “undeclared intelligence officers”, and halve the size of Russia's mission to the alliance in response to suspected malign activities.
The eight diplomats are expected to leave Brussels, where the alliance is headquartered, by the end of October and their positions scrapped. Two other positions that are currently vacant will also be abolished. This will reduce the size of the Russian mission to NATO in the Belgian capital to 10. On 18 October 2021, Russia suspended its mission to NATO and ordered the closure of NATO's office in Moscow in retaliation for NATO's expulsion of Russian diplomats.
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In November 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that an expansion of NATO's presence in Ukraine, especially the deployment of any long-range missiles capable of striking Russian cities or missile defence systems similar to those in Romania and Poland, would be a "red line" issue for Russia. Putin asked U.S. President Joe Biden for legal guarantees that NATO wouldn't expand eastward or put "weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory." NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg replied that "It's only Ukraine and 30 NATO allies that decide when Ukraine is ready to join NATO. Russia has no veto, Russia has no say, and Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence to try to control their neighbors."
The 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis occurred with Russia demanding that NATO end all military activity in Eastern Europe and never admit Ukraine as a member, and also stated they wanted a legally binding guarantee to end further eastward expansion. Alongside other demands including a Russian veto on Ukrainian membership in NATO, the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe, and the withdrawal of multinational NATO battalions from Poland and the Baltics. A senior Biden administration official later stated that the U.S. is "prepared to discuss Russia's proposals" with its NATO allies, but also stated that "there are some things in those documents that the Russians know will be unacceptable."
Despite Russia's announcement on Wednesday, February 16 2022, that military training in Moscow-annexed Crimea had stopped and soldiers were returning to their posts, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it appeared that Russia was continuing its military build-up.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Russian Federation
On 25 March 2014, Stoltenberg gave a speech to a Labour Party convention where he harshly criticized Russia over its invasion of Crimea, stating that Russia threatened security and stability in Europe and violated international law, and calling Russia's actions unacceptable. After his election as NATO Secretary-General, Stoltenberg emphasized that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a "brutal reminder of the necessity of NATO," stating that Russia's actions in Ukraine represented "the first time since the Second World War that a country has annexed a territory belonging to another country."
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Stoltenberg has highlighted the necessity of NATO having a sufficiently strong military capacity, including nuclear weapons, to deter Russia from violating international law and threaten the security of NATO's member states. He has highlighted the importance of Article 5 in the North Atlantic Treaty and NATO's responsibility to defend the security of its eastern members in particular. He has further stated that Russia needs to be sanctioned over its actions in Ukraine, and has said that a possible NATO membership of Ukraine will be "a very important question" in the near future. Stoltenberg has expressed concern over Russia acquiring new cruise missiles.
Stoltenberg has called NATO "the most successful alliance in history," stating that "NATO has secured the peace in Europe since its creation, and the alliance has managed to adapt to new security challenges."
Stoltenberg has called for more cooperation with Russia in the fight against terrorism following a deadly attack on the headquarters of a French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
Under the Stoltenberg leadership, the alliance took a radically new position on propaganda and counter-propaganda in 2015, that "Entirely legal activities, such as running a pro-Moscow TV station, could become a broader assault on a country that would require a NATO response under Article Five of the Treaty... A final strategy is expected in October 2015." In another report, the journalist reported that "as part of the hardened stance, Britain has committed £750,000 of UK money to support a counter-propaganda unit at NATO's headquarters in Brussels."
On 24 November 2015, Stoltenberg said "We stand in solidarity with Turkey and support the territorial integrity of our Nato ally" after Turkey shot down a Russian military jet for allegedly violating Turkish airspace for 17 seconds, near the Syrian border.
In response to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Stoltenberg announced on 27 March that NATO would be expelling seven Russian diplomats from the Russian mission to NATO in Brussels. In addition, 3 unfilled positions at the mission were denied accreditation from NATO. Russia blamed the US for the NATO response.
NATO–Russia Council
The NATO-Russia Council was created on 28 May 2002 during the 2002 NATO Summit in Rome. The council has been an official diplomatic tool for handling security issues and joint projects between NATO and Russia, involving "consensus-building, consultations, joint decisions and joint actions."
"Joint decisions and actions", taken under NATO-Russia Council agreements, include:
- Fighting terrorism
- Military cooperation (joint military exercises and personnel training)
- Cooperation on Afghanistan:
- Russia providing training courses for anti-narcotics officers from Afghanistan and Central Asia countries in cooperation with the UN
- Transportation by Russia of non-military freight in support of NATO's ISAF in Afghanistan, industrial cooperation, cooperation on defence interoperability, non-proliferation, and other areas.
The heads of state for NATO Allies and Russia gave a positive assessment of NATO-Russia Council achievements in a Bucharest summit meeting in April 2008, though both sides have expressed mild discontent with the lack of actual content resulting from the council. In January 2009, the Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said the NATO-Russia council was "a body where scholastic discussions were held." A US official shared this view, stating: "We want now to structure cooperation more practically, in areas where you can achieve results, instead of insisting on things that won't happen."
On 12 January 2022, the NATO-Russia Council met at NATO's HQ in Brussels to discuss Russia's military build-up near its border with Ukraine and Russia's demands for security guarantees in Europe. The respective delegations were led by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman and NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Grushko and Russian Deputy Defence Minister, Colonel General Alexander Fomin.
Conflicts of interests
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and recognition of Kosovo
In 1999, Russia condemned the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Russian President Boris Yeltsin said that NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia "has trampled upon the foundations of international law and the United Nations charter." The Kosovo War ended on 11 June 1999, and a joint NATO-Russian peacekeeping force was to be installed in Kosovo. Russia had expected to receive a peacekeeping sector independent of NATO, and was angered when this was refused. There was concern that a separate Russian sector might lead to a partition of Kosovo between a Serb-controlled north and Albanian south. From 12 to 26 June 1999, there was a brief but tense stand-off between NATO and the Russian Kosovo Force in which Russian troops occupied the Pristina International Airport.
In 2008, Russia condemned the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, stating they "expect the UN mission and NATO-led forces in Kosovo to take immediate action to carry out their mandate [...] including the annulling of the decisions of Pristina's self-governing organs and the taking of tough administrative measures against them." Russian President Vladimir Putin described the recognition of Kosovo's independence by several major world powers as "a terrible precedent, which will de facto blow apart the whole system of international relations, developed not over decades, but over centuries", and that "they have not thought through the results of what they are doing. At the end of the day it is a two-ended stick and the second end will come back and hit them in the face". In March 2014, Russia used Kosovo's declaration of independence as a justification for recognizing the independence of Crimea, citing the so-called "Kosovo independence precedent".
Georgia war and recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
Relations between Russia and NATO soured in summer 2008 due to Russia's war with Georgia. Later the North Atlantic Council condemned Russia for recognizing the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions of Georgia as independent states. The Secretary General of NATO claimed that Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia violated numerous UN Security Council resolutions, including resolutions endorsed by Russia. Russia, in turn, insisted the recognition was taken basing on the situation on the ground, and was in line with the UN Charter, the CSCE Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and other fundamental international law; Russian media heavily stressed the precedent of the recent Kosovo declaration of independence.
Relations were further strained in May 2009 when NATO expelled two Russia diplomats over accusations of espionage. It has also added to the tension already created by proposed NATO military exercises in Georgia, as the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said,
The planned NATO exercises in Georgia, no matter how one tries to convince us otherwise, are an overt provocation. One cannot carry out exercises in a place where there was just a war.
Before the Russian Parliamentary elections in 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev was also quoted as saying that had Russia not joined the 2008 South Ossetia war, NATO would have expanded further eastward.
In September 2019, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted as saying that if NATO accepts Georgian membership with the article on collective defense covering only Tbilisi-administered territory (i.e., excluding the two Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are currently unrecognized breakaway republics supported by Russia), "we will not start a war, but such conduct will undermine our relations with NATO and with countries who are eager to enter the alliance."
NATO-led military intervention in Libya
The 2011 military intervention in Libya prompted a widespread wave of criticism from several world leaders, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who said that "[UNSC Resolution 1973] is defective and flawed...It allows everything. It resembles medieval calls for crusades."
NATO Missile defence
The Russian Government says that a US proposed missile defence system in Poland and in the Czech Republic could threaten its own defences. The Russian Space Forces commander, Colonel General Vladimir Popovkin stated in 2007 that "[the] trajectories of Iranian or North Korean missiles would hardly pass anywhere near the territory of the Czech republic, but every possible launch of Russian ICBM from the territory of the European Russia, or made by Russian Northern Fleet would be controlled by the [radar] station".
However, in 2009, Barack Obama cancelled the missile defence project in Poland and Czech Republic after Russia threatened the US with military response, and warned Poland that by agreeing to NATO's anti-missile system, it was exposing itself to a strike or nuclear attack from Russia.
Russia has also warned against moving defensive missiles to Turkey's border with Syria.
In February 2010, Romania announced a deal with the US for an anti-missile defence system, which Russia interpreted as a threat to its national security.
Future enlargement plans of NATO to Ukraine and Georgia
In early 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush vowed full support for admitting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, despite Russia's opposition to the further eastward expansion of NATO.
The Russian Government claims plans to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia may negatively affect European security. Likewise, Russians are mostly strongly opposed to any eastward expansion of NATO. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in 2008 that "no country would be happy about a military bloc to which it did not belong approaching its borders". Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin warned that any incorporation of Ukraine into NATO would cause a "deep crisis" in Russia–Ukraine relations and also negatively affect Russia's relations with the West.
In September 2019, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that "NATO approaching our borders is a threat to Russia." He was quoted as saying that if NATO accepts Georgian membership with the article on collective defense covering only Tbilisi-administered territory (i.e., excluding the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are currently unrecognized breakaway republics supported by Russia), "we will not start a war, but such conduct will undermine our relations with NATO and with countries who are eager to enter the alliance."
Suggestions of Russia joining NATO
The idea of Russia becoming a NATO member has at different times been floated by both Western and Russian leaders, as well as some experts. No serious discussions were ever held.
In February 1990, while negotiating German reunification at the end of the Cold War with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev said that "You say that NATO is not directed against us, that it is simply a security structure that is adapting to new realities ... therefore, we propose to join NATO." However, Baker dismissed the possibility as a "dream". During a series of interviews with filmmaker Oliver Stone, President Vladimir Putin told him that he floated the possibility of Russia joining NATO to President Bill Clinton when he visited Moscow in 2000.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Danish Prime Minister who served as NATO Secretary General from 2009 to 2014, said in 2019 that "Once Russia can show it is upholding democracy and human rights, NATO can seriously consider its membership." According to Rasmussen, in the early days of Putin's presidency around 2000–2001, Putin made many statements that suggested he was favorable to the idea of Russia joining NATO.
In response to a March 2009 suggestion by Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski that Russia join NATO, the Russian envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, stated that Russia had not ruled that out as a future possibility but that it instead preferred to keep practical limited cooperation with NATO, adding that Russia wanted to be NATO's "partner" provided that Georgia (with which Russia had a war the previous year) and Ukraine did not join the alliance.
In early 2010, the suggestion was repeated in an open letter co-written by German defense experts. They posited that Russia was needed in the wake of an emerging multi-polar world in order for NATO to counterbalance emerging Asian powers.
In a 2019 interview with Time Magazine, Sergey Karaganov a close advisor to Putin, considers not allowing Russia to join NATO was the “one of the worst mistakes in political history, It automatically put Russia and the West on a collision course, eventually sacrificing Ukraine”.
Ideology and propaganda
Kimberly Marten argued in 2020 that NATO's enlargement made it weaker, not stronger as Moscow feared. The bad relations that emerged after 2009 were mostly caused by Russia's own declining influence in world affairs. Thirdly, Russia's strong negative reaction was manipulated and magnified by both nationalists and by Putin, as ammunition in their domestic political wars. Current Russian leaderships' views of world politics "are deeply rooted in realist approaches to international relations" and they perceive "a major external military risk in NATO’s bringing the military infrastructure of its member countries near the borders of the Russian Federationn; likewise, with further [formal] expansion of the Alliance." This provides a threat-based legitimacy that allows them to consolidate their domestic position, implement harsh anti-democratic measures, and justify a military build-up and aggressive actions abroad.
Both Russia and NATO have engaged in propaganda wars, and both sides fund several media outlets that help spread their message. Russia funds international broadcasters such as RT, Rossiya Segodnya (including Sputnik), and TASS. as well as several domestic media networks. NATO countries fund international broadcasters such as Voice of America and the BBC World Service. Russian media has been particularly critical of the United States.
In 2014, Russia cut off Voice of America radio transmissions after Voice of America criticized Russia's actions in Ukraine. Russia's freedom of the press has received low scores in the Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders, and Russia limits foreign ownership stakes of media organizations to no greater than 20%. In January 2015, the UK, Denmark, Lithuania and Estonia called on the European Union to jointly confront Russian propaganda by setting up a "permanent platform" to work with NATO in strategic communications and boost local Russian-language media.
On 19 January 2015, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said the EU planned to establish a Russia-language mass media body with a target Russian-speaking audience in Eastern Partnership countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, as well as in the European Union countries.
Vladimir Putin has presented Eurasianism and "Putinism" as an alternative to the Western ideals espoused by many NATO countries. Putinism combines state capitalism with authoritarian nationalism. Putin and Russia as a whole lost respect for the values and moral authority of the West, creating a "values gap" between Russia and the West. Putin has promoted his brand of conservative Russian values, and has emphasized the importance of religion.
Gay rights have divided Russia and many NATO countries, as the United States and some European countries have used their soft power to promote the protection of gay rights in Eastern Europe. Russia, on the other hand, has hindered the freedom of homosexuality and earned support from those opposed to gay marriage.
In March 2016, Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was at "information war" primarily with "Anglo-Saxon mass media".
Trade and economy
In 1998, Russia joined the G8, a forum of eight large developed countries, six of which are members of NATO. In 2012, Russia joined the World Trade Organization, an organization of governments committed to reducing tariffs and other trade barriers. These increased economic ties gave Russia access to new markets and capital, as well as political clout in the West and other countries. Russian gas exports came to be viewed as a weapon against NATO countries, and the US and other Western countries have worked to lessen the dependency of Europe on Russia and its resources.
The Russian economy is heavily dependent on the export of natural resources such as oil and natural gas, and Russia has used these resources to its advantage. Starting in the mid-2000s, Russia and Ukraine had several disputes in which Russia threatened to cut off the supply of gas. As a great deal of Russia's gas is exported to Europe through the pipelines crossing Ukraine, those disputes affected several NATO countries. While Russia claimed the disputes had arisen from Ukraine's failure to pay its bills, Russia may also have been motivated by a desire to punish the pro-Western government that came to power after the Orange Revolution.
While Russia's new role in the global economy presented Russia with several opportunities, it also made the Russian Federation more vulnerable to external economic trends and pressures. Like many other countries, Russia's economy suffered during the Great Recession. Following the Crimean Crisis, several countries (including most of NATO) imposed sanctions on Russia, hurting the Russian economy by cutting off access to capital. At the same time, the global price of oil declined. The combination of Western sanctions and the falling crude price in 2014 and thereafter resulted in the 2014–15 Russian financial crisis.
Russia's foreign relations with NATO member states
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