Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow proceeds from the premise that the North Atlantic Alliance needs to take the first step to improve relations with Russia.

“Yes, we proceed from this, because we have never begun to deteriorate relations either with NATO, or with the European Union, or with any Western country or any other region of the world,” the minister said, answering journalists' questions after speaking in discussion club "Valdai".

Along with this, the minister stated that NATO's proposals were ignored by Moscow.

He cited as an example an initiative two years ago, when the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov proposed to agree on the withdrawal of exercises at a certain distance from the contact line between Russia and NATO, as well as on the minimum distances that should not be violated by combat aircraft and warships.

“Just a wall of silence.

And when, say, the German Foreign Minister (I heard it today) said that by its step Russia is showing that it is not ready for negotiations ... I just told you how we were ready for negotiations and how NATO is simply ignoring us. for more than one year, ”Lavrov said.

He noted that NATO representatives "buried" the previous rule on the need for urgent consultations in crisis situations.

We will remind, on October 18, Lavrov said that the activities of the military communications mission and the NATO information bureau in Moscow are suspended, the accreditation of its employees is withdrawn from November 1.

According to the minister, in the event NATO has "emergency matters", these issues should be addressed to the Russian ambassador to Belgium.

Also on russian.rt.com "The Alliance Cannot Conduct a Normal Dialogue": Why Russia Suspends the Work of its Permanent Mission to NATO

Thus, Russia responded to the actions of the North Atlantic Alliance.

On October 6, NATO demanded from the Russian Federation to reduce the number of staff of the permanent mission to ten people, and also revoked the accreditation of eight diplomats, notifying them of the need to leave Brussels.

According to the secretary general of the alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, this was done due to the intensification of the allegedly hostile activities of Russia, as well as due to the fact that the diplomats deprived of accreditation were officers of Russian intelligence.

As Stoltenberg noted, due to the "growing activity of Russia," the alliance must "be vigilant."

He said that the alliance's relations with the Russian Federation are now at their lowest level since the Cold War.

At the same time, the secretary general mentioned the bloc's readiness to conduct a dialogue with Russia, accusing it of allegedly unwillingness to make contact.

"It is impossible to dance tango alone"

Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian President, also spoke about the decision taken with regard to NATO.

According to him, the Russian side will not suffer from this, since there was no dialogue with NATO.

“NATO declared its intention to contain Russia in every possible way, backed up these words with concrete actions,” Peskov said.

He called the expulsion of Russian diplomats “the last straw”.

“If necessary, as our foreign minister has already explained, our ambassador in Brussels will be able to answer all relevant questions.

Actually, let's not forget that this was the case before, and these functions of maintaining the dialogue were ours after in Brussels, ”he said.

At the same time, Peskov noted that the Russian side has repeatedly emphasized, speaking about relations with the alliance, that "it is impossible to dance tango alone, and we are not going to do this."

He added that the decision simply formalized de jure the situation that has long been formed de facto.

Sergei Tsekov, a member of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs, noted that NATO is constantly forgetting that it is the alliance that acts as a source of threat to Russia due to the constant expansion of the association to the east.

“If they really appreciated our relationship and realized that they were all the time trying to talk to us from a position of certain pressure, I don’t want to say that the forces, because lately they understand that we are also a very strong power, which is capable of stand.

But they all the time speak to us in the language of ultimatums.

They constantly had and still have some complaints against us, ”the senator said in an interview with RT.

Tsekov suggested that only after an objective assessment of these circumstances on the part of NATO, there will be a readiness to normalize relations.

It is the alliance that must take the first step, the senator said.

“If they really want to avoid conflicts in the future due to misunderstandings related to the fact that there are no direct contacts between NATO and Russia, they should now take steps to restore normal relations with Russia on verified bilateral principles, equal principles,” concluded Tsekov.