Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs on April 4-5, 2023

On April 4-5 in Brussels, NATO held a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of foreign ministers. Focused on preparations for the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius this summer, the event also marked the 74th anniversary of the alliance, a rudimentary structure of the Cold War era which, as envisaged by its founders, was supposed to ensure the supremacy of the collective West over the rest of the world.

Essentially, the alliance has nothing to be proud of. What the allies have under their belts is wars, turning countries into ruins, war crimes that have remained unpunished, murders of civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. Who’s next?

At the same time, representatives of the North Atlantic bloc incessantly repeat that the purpose of the union is defence. However, the entire history of the organisation attests to the contrary. Now again, we can see that NATO, seeking to usurp the entire system of European security, continues to expand towards Russia and create threats to our security.

Finland has become yet another victim of the North Atlantic alliance. The Finnish officials decided to part with the country’s decades-long neutrality in exchange for becoming a near-front zone and a springboard for deterring Russia in the northwest.

As we can see, NATO does not intend to stop at that. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg increasingly issues statements about the alliance’s global role and the need to expand beyond its traditional area of responsibility, or the Euro-Atlantic. The reality is that NATO is building a foundation for pervasively imposing NATO-centric approaches to regional security. Hence the pumping of more weapons into Ukraine and motivating it to continue the war with Russia; hence the attacks on China, the flirting with Japan and South Korea and plans to militarise the Arctic. All these efforts are meant to make the world more dangerous and prevent the existence of any alternative centres of power that may be able to undermine the hegemony of the West. Overall, we can confidently state that security and NATO are two incompatible things. It is hard to escape the conclusion: at 74, the North Atlantic bloc should retire.