Russian Envoy: Euro-Atlantic Security Concept Has Collapsed

KALININGRAD, June 27. /TASS/. The security concept based on Euro-Atlantic mechanisms "has gone bankrupt and spectacularly collapsed," Russian Foreign Ministry’s Ambassador-at-Large Alexander Trofimov said in an interview with TASS.

"We all see what is being said in Europe right now. One would hope that there are still sensible forces there; after all, it is impossible not to see that the concept of European security, especially relying on Euro-Atlantic mechanisms, first went bankrupt and then spectacularly collapsed," he said on the sidelines of an expert dialogue of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

European security has been discredited by the European countries themselves, the European members of NATO and the EU, and, as a result, it has lost all meaning and practical prospects for Russia, the diplomat stressed. "What the current generations of the political class in European capitals are engaged in cannot be described as ensuring security. Rather, it is a way of justifying their own existence by emphasizing the need to counter threats allegedly emanating from Russia and Belarus. Just recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed all such statements as false," he said.

In reality, threats are being posed precisely to the core security interests of Russia and Belarus, even though Moscow’s actions have never been directed against the interests of Western European nations, Trofimov noted. "Therefore, their aggression against us is entirely unprovoked. Right now, everything imaginable is being used against us, every possible means: provocations, financial and economic strangulation, proxy warfare, and rabid propaganda, with pressure being exerted on our friends and partners," he concluded.