Russia-NATO partnership has been recently upgraded as the Parties made spectacular progress to coordinate their stances on the anti-terror cause and other global challenges.
Nevertheless, Russia cannot but feel concerned with NATO enlargement eastwards as its armed forces are getting closer to the Russian frontier, said the MP to make a stress on AWACS reconnaissance flights along the frontier, and ostentatious haste to deploy air forces and air defence troops and equipment in the post-Soviet Baltics, which recently joined the Organisation.
Respective decisions were made without previous evaluation of chances to join hands with Russia on Russia-NATO Council joint projects against real not alleged dangers. That dampened the Russian public opinion of NATO.
Even though NATO fighter craft patrolling the post-Soviet Baltics do not spell immediate war danger to Russia, the arrangement is out of keeping with the goals and spirit of present-day Russia-NATO partnership. It proves that NATO prefers to proceed, as before, from its own instructions, rather than unbiased appraisals of regional security, remarked Ms. Sliska.
If NATO had taken a genuine partnerly stance on the matter, it would not have deployed four Belgian fighters in Lithuania on a unilateral move but arrange joint Russia-NATO Baltic air patrols-a good way to bring down tensions in the area, she argued.
The parliamentary leader called Russia and NATO to work for all-round confidence building and mutual monitoring so as to prevent alarming military activities along their contact line.
As she sees it, NATO countries ought to ratify the CFE as soon as possible as the treaty on conventional forces in Europe is a pillar of stability through arms control.
