Russia suspends NATO mission in retaliation to expulsion of its diplomats over spy row

Russia has suspended its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mission in response to the "expulsion" of eight members of its military alliance last week. In a statement published on the official website, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on 18 October that the country's staff at NATO’s mission in Moscow would be stripped of their accreditation from 1 November.  It also added that the intergovernmental military alliance including 28 European countries and 2 North American countries, could interact with Moscow through its embassy in Brussels if required.

Moscow’s reaction came in the backdrop of NATO expelling eight Russian diplomats from the country’s mission saying that they were working as intelligence officers. As per BBC, a NATO official said that men were "undeclared Russian intelligence officers.” What the Kremlin referred to as “unfriendly actions” is NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s decision of 6 October, withdrawing the accreditation of eight members of the Russian Permanent Mission to NATO from 1 November while also reducing the overall number of mission personnel to 10.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has noted that the membership of Russia's Permanent Mission in Brussels has been previously reduced “unilaterally” twice before in 2015 and 2018. The reduction in membership came after the alliance on 1 April 2014, decided to suspend “nearly all forms of civilian and military cooperation between Russia and NATO.” As per The Associated Press, Russian Foreign Minister  Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, "NATO isn’t interested in any kind of equal dialogue or joint work,” adding that “we don’t see any need to keep pretending that there could be any shift in the foreseeable future."

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, “These NATO actions have shown that the bloc is not interested in an equal dialogue or joint efforts to defuse military-political tension. Its policy towards Russia is becoming increasingly more aggressive. The myth about the alleged “Russian threat” is being promoted, in part, to strengthen the bloc’s internal affinity and to make it look important in the current geopolitical circumstances.”

“In the absence of the necessary conditions for conducting diplomatic activities, due to NATO’s deliberate steps, the functioning of the Russian Permanent Mission to NATO, including its chief military representative, shall be suspended...The activities of the NATO Military Liaison Mission Moscow shall be suspended. The accreditation of its employees shall be withdrawn on November 1, 2021,” it added. 

Russia-NATO relations

Notably, the Russian mission to NATO is not based on the alliance's headquarters but in the south of the Belgian capital, Brussels. The intergovernmental organisation had suspended practical cooperation with Russia in 2014 after it annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. While NATO did keep the channels open for senior-level meetings and military-to-military cooperation, the Guardian stated that the NATO-Russia council has only met sporadically since then. 

(IMAGE: AP)