MOSCOW, April 17 (RIA Novosti) – NATO has surpassed its propaganda efforts of the 1990s by blaming Russia for the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
“The North Atlantic Treaty Organization made a series of publications lately, including ‘Russia's accusations – setting the record straight,’ in which NATO in its usual biased manner called Russia responsible for the recent crisis [in Ukraine],” the ministry said.
“Moreover NATO's recent anti-Russian political rhetoric has surpassed the propaganda during the aggression against Yugoslavia,” the ministry added.
The ministry said that despite disagreements, Russia has continued to honestly develop cooperation with the alliance in areas of common interest as part of an effort to wipe out hostile feelings left over from the Cold War.
On Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen pledged to step up patrols and boost its military presence along the alliance’s eastern border in Europe, citing Russia’s alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis.
The move came as a further sign that the alliance was tightening its grip on Eastern Europe, where it is already conducting air-policing and surveillance missions over Poland, Romania and the Baltic states.
Federalization supporters in eastern Ukrainian regions have been staging mass rallies since March in a bid to hold referendums similar to the one that recently led to Crimea’s reunification with Russia. In order to suppress the activists, the Ukrainian army launched a special operation earlier this week targeting the cities of Kramatorsk and Slaviansk in the Donetsk region.
Moscow has condemned the Ukrainian regime’s use of force against its own population as unacceptable.
