DISINFO: NATO aims to destabilise Europe
SUMMARY
While preserving peace was one of NATO’s founding principles, the Alliance has completely abandoned this practice. This is a bloc that was created for confrontation and today focuses on nothing else but confrontation. It does not bring any stability to the European continent. On the contrary, it is a force of destabilisation. Russia strives to have normal relations with NATO members, but the same cannot be said about them. The Baltic Republics are a case in point – these countries do everything they can to invite foreign military forces next to Russia’s borders. Russia is prepared to do everything in its power to stabilise relations between it and the US.
RESPONSE
A recurrent disinformation narrative that vilifies NATO as a supposedly aggressive, anti-Russian and destabilising organisation, while falsely presenting Russia as a peaceful and cooperative actor. As is typical, the pro-Kremlin outlet does not present any tangible evidence of NATO’s aggression.
Contrary to the claim made in the article, NATO’s primary aims are to maintain peace and safeguard the independence, security and territorial integrity of its members, which it continues to do in the present. NATO’s presence in the Baltic countries and in other NATO members has an entirely defensive nature and is not specifically directed against Russia or any other country for that matter.
Contrary to the claim, NATO’s presence in Europe brings stability to an increasingly unstable security environment, primarily due to Russia’s increasingly aggressive and threatening foreign policy. Specifically, Kremlin has engaged in numerous malign operations on the territories of NATO members in Europe, including the 2014 Vrbětice ammunitions depot explosion in Czechia, the attempted poisoning of Sergei Skripal in 2018 in the UK, and continuous interference in the internal affairs of several countries, including the UK, France, Poland, Bulgaria and others. Russia also continues to engage in unlawful behaviour that threatens the wider international community, including unlawful trade with North Korea, carrying out cyber-attacks, the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons, and the suppression of human rights, among many others. In other words, NATO serves as an important guarantor for each member’s independence and territorial integrity, even in the face of large, nuclear-armed states such as Russia.
Despite the Kremlin’s widespread breaches of international norms, NATO continues to rely on its key principles of deterrence and dialogue in its relations with Russia. All practical cooperation had to be suspended in 2014 after Russia invaded Ukraine and occupied Crimea. Nevertheless, the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) has never ceased to operate and high-level political and military channels of communications remain open. As NATO has repeatedly stressed, the Alliance is open to a constructive relationship with Russia but only on the reasonable condition that Russia “demonstrates compliance with international law and Russia's international commitments”.
Read similar cases of disinformation in the database claiming that NATO troops in Baltic countries and Poland threaten the security of Russia and Belarus, that NATO does not serve the purpose of war prevention, it continues to wage wars, that NATO is trying to encircle Russia and has one goal – to neutralise Russia, and that NATO is conducting aggressive anti-Russian operations.