MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported earlier on Monday, citing a source in NATO, that the next expansion of the alliance would see Montenegro accepted to the military alliance.
The decision on Montenegro's membership in NATO acceptance could be made as early as December 2015 and not at July 2016 summit, as it had been previously suggested, the newspaper said.
“Early accession of Montenegro, if it is to take place, will be simply a proof of NATO’s activity on the expansion of its military and political presence on the territories of Eastern and Southern Europe,” Pushkov said.
The Russian lawmaker added that NATO was trying to use the current crisis in Ukraine to give a second life to the alliance.
NATO is trying to prove its usefulness “by pushing the thesis of Russian threat even though there is no threat from Russia to Europe and there are no confirmations of such a threat,” Pushkov stressed.
“Many European countries fear that such feverish activity of Brussels could lead to some kind of a conflict situation with Russia,” Pushkov said.
NATO launched a massive expansion following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, having accepted three Baltic countries and almost all the member states of the former Eastern Bloc (except for Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia).
