Stoltenberg said there are no plans for NATO to become a global alliance

NATO plans to remain a regional alliance and does not intend to expand globally, stated Secretary General of the organization Jens Stoltenberg.

“NATO will remain a regional alliance, only European countries can join. NATO will not be a global alliance for the application of Art. 5,” Stoltenberg said at a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in New York (quoted by TASS). In Art. 5 of the treaty enshrines the principle of collective defense of the military alliance.

In July Stoltenberg stated, that Russia was against every expansion of NATO, but it is not for her to decide which countries can enter the military bloc and which cannot. At the same time, he said that Moscow’s victory in the conflict in Ukraine would be a tragedy for Kyiv and would make NATO more vulnerable.

In December 2021, Russia handed over draft guarantees and security agreements to the United States and NATO. In them, Moscow demanded that the United States abandon the expansion of the alliance to the east, as well as refuse to admit countries that were previously part of the USSR into NATO. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin called The West will immediately provide specific security guarantees.

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special operation in Ukraine. The President of the Russian Federation called its goals the protection of the residents of Donbass, as well as the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. Subsequently, Putin repeatedly noted that one of the reasons for the special operation was NATO’s plans to expand “at the expense of Ukraine.”