Russia is "extremely" concerned by the development of Natoand opposes further expansion by the Western military alliance, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Wednesday, state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.
"We are extremely concerned over the direction in which the alliance will evolve," Grushko was quoted as saying. Grushko lashed out at Nato's steady expansion into former Moscow-dominated eastern Europe, saying the policy "was a leftover from the time of the Cold War and today is not able to resolve a single real security problem".
Instead, Nato's "open-doors policy" only "leads to a strengthening of antagonisms between different countries", Grushko said. Natogave membership in 1999 to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, then in 2004 brought in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria. Among other former communist countries seeking membership are Albania, Croatia, Macedonia.