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By ignoring the fundamental UN Charter provision on the peoples' right to self-determination and refusing to recognize the outcomes of the Crimean referendum, NATO is driving its relationship with Russia into a deadlock, Russian permanent envoy to NATO Alexander Grushko said.
"The allegations on Moscow's aggressive designs posing a threat to the NATO countries are absolutely groundless and farfetched. If any danger could even emerge, then only from nationalistic and radical forces in Ukraine and in the case of the further deterioration of the situation in this country," Grushko told Interfax on Wednesday.
"The additional measures announced [by NATO] and aimed at the so-called protection of the Eastern European members are absolutely unfounded," he said.
Russia, NATO won't gain from alliance decision to suspend cooperation - Moscow
Neither Russia nor NATO countries will gain from the North Atlantic Council's decision to suspend cooperation with Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"It is easy to predict who will gain from the curtailment of the Russia-NATO joint suppression of contemporary threats and challenges to global and European security, including the deterrence of terrorism, piracy, natural and man-made disasters," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in his answer to a media question about the decision of NATO to suspend cooperation with Russia over the Ukrainian situation.
The answer was published on the ministry website. "Anyway, that would definitely not be Russia and NATO member countries," the Russian diplomat continued, according to Interfax reports.
NATO's decision to phase out cooperation with Russia in training anti-drug officers for Afghanistan reveals the alliance's unwillingness to really combat drug production in this country, Viktor Ivanov, the chief of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service, told Interfax on Wednesday.
"This is not surprising. What could you have expected from NATO?" Ivanov said. Media reported earlier on Wednesday that NATO had decided to suspend cooperation with Russia in training anti-drug officers for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"NATO has long been pursuing a policy aimed at the presence of its military component in Afghanistan. Now they are pulling out of this country, leaving massive drug production there," Ivanov said.