In an interview with RIA Novosti, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Alexander Grushko said that all military and civilian collaboration between his government and the NATO alliance have ground to a halt. “NATO itself has refused to adopt a positive agenda for its relationship with Russia. It just doesn’t exist. And so far, there’s no sign that anyone in NATO knows how to get out of this impasse,” Grushko argued.

The deputy minister noted that current Russian-NATO relations are reminiscent of the state of the Soviet-NATO relationship during the Cold War. He openly expressed hope for a change in that state of affairs but asserted that the responsibility for that change should rest entirely on NATO’s shoulders.

By way of explanation, Grushko said that total military spending by NATO countries surpassed a trillion dollars last year, making that spending more than 22 times Russia’s military budget. However, the combined budgets of European NATO countries, whose leaders have most consistently expressed concern over Russian military involvement in Ukraine, account for a small fraction of that figure; U.S. military spending, including spending on contingency operations, reached $890.8 billion in 2018.

NATO, Russia, and the USSR: a fraught history NATO was born 70 years ago today. Moscow has always viewed it as a threat, but that hasn't prevented three attempts to join the alliance.