Moscow believes NATO 'lecturers' are training anti-Russian rebels

“NATO instructors in a number of countries are training mercenaries and saboteurs to engage in anti-Russian activities,” Patrushev said in an interview with Arguments and Facts on the occasion of NATO's 75th anniversary.

The Secretary of the Russian Security Council noted that NATO does not hesitate to use terrorist organizations for its own benefit. He pointed out that the organization's members impose sanctions, spend money on intelligence, psychological and cyber operations, and engage in "actions aimed at weakening the public administration of countries that disagree with Western policy."

In addition, according to Mr. Patrushev, NATO has in fact become a party to the conflict in Ukraine, the alliance is actively involved in organizing artillery strikes on the Russian territory of Ukraine, and makes collective decisions on supplying new weapons and new combat capabilities to Kiev.

Mr. Patrushev said that European countries in NATO have long since "lost many elements of sovereignty and are in fact only the economic and political support for the alliance." "The ideal of independence and responsibility for their own people and their future has given way to the desire to satisfy Washington's global demands," Mr. Patrushev said.

On the contrary, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council said that international security should be considered a single, indivisible interest, which all countries without exception should enjoy equally. This is the approach that Russia is taking and there are many "like-minded" countries.

The Secretary of the Russian Security Council said that NATO is systematically increasing its military potential along Russia's borders - from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea.

“In the speeches of NATO leaders and in documents, the term “NATO's eastern flank” even appears, which includes all the Eastern European countries bordering Russia and its ally Belarus, as well as Romania and, more recently, Sweden and Finland,” Patrushev pointed out.

NATO does not hide the fact that the largest military exercise near Russia's borders - Steadfast Defender 2024, currently taking place in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union - is aimed precisely at containing Russia, Mr. Patrushev said.

In 2023 alone, NATO and its member states will conduct 130 alliance national military exercises and training exercises. “Not over a decade, but in 2023,” Patrushev stressed.

Regarding Ukraine, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council said there was undeniable evidence that Kiev, at the instigation of the US and NATO after the February 2014 coup, thought about solving the problem in a "harsh way".

"NATO exercises have been taking place regularly on Ukrainian territory since 1995. And in 2004, sacrificing the country's sovereignty for the sake of the alliance, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law allowing NATO forces free access to Ukrainian territory," Patrushev said.