A Kremlin spokesman has said the Russian government agrees with Donald Trump's comments that NATO is "obsolete," which the president-elect made during his first major interview with two European newspapers, published over the weekend.



In his discussion with UK's The Times and Germany's Bild, Trump also criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union, but praised Brexit and predicted more countries would follow the UK in leaving the EU.

On Monday, the Kremlin reacted warmly to Trump's NATO criticism, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov declaring that "confrontation is the systemic goal of this organization."

The military alliance of 28 countries, created after World War II, has been credited with maintaining international stability — particularly during the Cold War.

Russia is not a member of NATO, and its military has been at odds with alliance members over the conflict in Ukraine. Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 sparked sanctions from the US and its allies.

"It's obsolete because it wasn't taking care of terror," Trump told former UK cabinet minister Michael Gove, and former German newspaper chief editor Kai Diekmann during a sit-down interview that took place last week.

Russian news agency TASS quoted Peskov as saying, "NATO is, indeed, a vestige [of the past] and we also agree with that."

"Considering that it [the organization] is focused on confrontation and its entire structure is devoted to the ideals of confrontation, then, of course, this can hardly be called a modern structure meeting the ideas of stability, sustainable development and security," he continued.

Trump also said part of the problem with NATO was that countries were not "paying what they're supposed to pay."

In July 2016, the then–presidential candidate was heavily criticized after he suggested to the New York Times that America would not necessarily defend its NATO allies, should they have failed to financially contribute, under his presidency.

Trump, speaking in his latest interview, tempered his criticism somewhat, by stating it was "very important to me" and that he felt "very strongly" towards Europe.

However, he moved on to accuse Germany of dominating the EU, and described Merkel's decision to admit more than 1 million migrants and refugees as "a catastrophic mistake."

Responding to the criticism during a joint press conference with New Zealand's PM Monday, Merkel noted, "I think we Europeans have our fate in our own hands."

The UK has accepted far fewer refugees than many of its EU neighbors, and even before Brexit, the UK government was able to opt out of a plan to resettle refugees within Europe.



“I think it’s very tough,” Trump said, as reported by the Sunday Times. “People, countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity.”

European anger over the migration crisis would prompt more countries to leave the EU, he said.