NATO, Russia trade accusations

RIGA, Latvia NATO and Russia exchanged heated language reminiscent of Cold War days on Thursday with accusations of sinister geopolitical plotting and human rights abuses flying across an increasingly deep divide.

NATOs top U.S. civilian official, Alexander Vershbow, said Thursday that an angry, revisionist Russia was stopping at little to re-establish its clout in Europe, including redrawing borders by force to achieve its goals.

Vershbow, the alliances deputy secretary-general, told a conference in Latvia that President Vladimir Putins aim seems to be to turn Ukraine into a failed state and to suppress and discredit alternative voices in Russia, so as to prevent a Russian Maidan, referring to the Ukraine uprising which ousted Moscow-ally Viktor Yanukovych as president last year.

He rattled off a litany of harsh accusations against the Kremlin.

Under Putin, Vershbow said, Russia has developed a new form of hybrid warfare, combining military intimidation, disguised intervention, the covert supply of weapons and weapon systems, economic blackmail, diplomatic duplicity and media manipulation, with outright disinformation.

In Moscow, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov blasted the West for trying to enforce its will on others and cast Russia as an enemy. He condemned NATOs decision to create command and control centres in the Baltic states and three other eastern allies, and to upgrade a headquarters unit in Poland calling those moves a clear signal that the alliance views Russia much as it once did the Soviet Union.

Antonov said that while attending the recent Munich security conference he was struck by mad, paranoid talk about Russias coming military onslaught. Western countries are building new divisive lines, he said. Russia has been picked up as a target.

Russias permanent representative to NATO, Alexander Grushko, said the alliance is dreaming of a Russian Maidan.

The European Union and NATO have been harshly critical of Russias involvement in the standoff in eastern Ukraine and the annexation by Moscow of the Crimea peninsula.

The 28 EU nations have imposed a series of sanctions against Moscow, including visa bans and asset freezes on top Russian officials, with Antonov being the latest addition to the list. Moscow rejects NATO claims that it has designs on its neighbours, countering that it the West that is using the Ukraine crisis to try to expand the alliance further east.

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NATO, Russia trade accusations