DISINFO: Russia suspended NATO intelligence office in Moscow because the Alliance is moving to Cold War
SUMMARY
Russia has suspended the activity of the NATO intelligence office in Moscow because the Alliance is rapidly dragging itself towards Cold War schemes.
Moscow took this decision following NATO’s decision to revoke the accreditation of eight Russian mission collaborators to the North Atlantic Alliance.
RESPONSE
This ties onto a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about NATO as aggressive against Russia.
On 7 October 2021, NATO expelled eight Russian functionaries working in the Russian mission to this organisation. On 18 October 2021, Moscow decided to suspend the work of its mission in NATO. This situation is not a result of any alleged anti-Russian “Cold War” policies but the direct involvement of the Russian diplomats in espionage.
Since the end of the Cold War NATO have been reaching out to Russia with a series of partnership initiatives, culminating in the foundation of the NATO-Russia Council in 2002. No other country outside the Alliance had such a privileged relationship with NATO. As reaffirmed by NATO leaders at the Brussels Summit in July 2018, “NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia.”
Read similar cases claming that suspension of the Russian mission to NATO is a result of the Cold War policy of the West and that the idea that Russia is a threat to Europe exists only in the minds of Cold War nostalgics