The last existing communication channels between Russia and NATO were cut on Monday, October 18, at the initiative of the Russian side, which denounces “The increasingly aggressive line” of the Atlantic Alliance, after the expulsion of several of its diplomats. Three structures are concerned: the Russian mission to NATO in Brussels is suspending “Indefinitely” his activities ; the Alliance mission in Moscow, hosted by the Belgian embassy, is ordered to do the same, and its representatives have their accreditations withdrawn; Finally, the NATO information office in Moscow is closed.
These measures should become effective on 1er November. In case “Emergency”, the Alliance will have to turn to the Russian ambassador in Belgium in the future, warned Sergei Lavrov, the head of Russian diplomacy, at a press conference. This decision is another illustration of the growing tensions between Russia and the West: sanctions, cross expulsions of diplomats, accusations of electoral interference, espionage and cyber attacks attributed to Moscow. Russia, for its part, criticizes the Atlantic Alliance for its ambition to extend to Ukraine and Georgia.
Withdrawals of accreditations
The withdrawal, at the beginning of October, of the accreditation of eight members of the Russian delegation to the organization’s Brussels headquarters obviously increased the tension. These diplomats were accused of engaging in espionage activities and supporting special operations carried out by Russia on European soil. Seven of their colleagues had already been deported in 2018 after the attempted poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom.
After having counted about thirty members, the Russian delegation had therefore been reduced for a few weeks to ten people maximum. “The end of the mission is symbolic. It is above all the admission that with so few people, it had become inoperative ”, underlines an East European diplomat.
Having become a quasi-fiction, the relationship between the two parties was limited to informal exchanges between certain national delegations and the Russian representatives still present at the headquarters of the Alliance, in the suburbs of Brussels. NATO-Russia Council meetings had been frozen since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
France and a few others have tried, despite many tensions, never to completely sever the link with Moscow. And Paris deplores the absence of a clear NATO strategy regarding its future relationship with Russia.
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