 NATO, Russia to hold first talks since Skripal attack Brussels (AFP) May 28, 2018 - NATO will on Thursday hold its first formal talks with Russia since the nerve agent attack on a former Kremlin double agent in Britain, as the alliance seeks to counter Moscow's increasing assertiveness. Tensions between the transatlantic alliance and Russia have hit post-Cold War highs in recent years over Moscow's annexation of Crimea and more recently the attempted assassination of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British city of Salisbury. NATO vehemently criticised Moscow over the attack in March, the first hostile use of a nerve agent in Europe since World War Two, and expelled seven Russian diplomats as part of a coordinated international response. "A meeting of the NATO-Russia Council will take place on 31 May 2018," a NATO official said. "This is part of NATO's twin-track approach of strong defence and meaningful dialogue with Russia." The meeting -- the seventh of the NATO-Russia council in the last two years -- will be held at the alliance's brand-new headquarters in Brussels and is expected to cover the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, where Moscow is accused of backing pro-Russian separatists in the restive east. Transparency around military exercises is also expected to be discussed. At the last meeting in October, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said alliance members had challenged Russia over its controversial "Zapad" drills which caused concern in Poland and the Baltic states. The meeting comes as NATO builds up to its summit in July, which Stoltenberg on Monday said would focus on five key areas from deterrence to modernisation and EU relations, with measures to "manage" ties with Russia a priority. Last week NATO and the EU urged Moscow to take responsiblity for the 2014 downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine after international investigators concluded that a missile which destroyed the plane came from a Russian military brigade. The NRC met regularly until the Ukraine crisis plunged relations between the West and Moscow into a deep freeze in 2014 but the meetings resumed in 2016 after months of debate within the alliance over whether it would send the wrong signal to Moscow. US-led NATO has suspended all practical cooperation with Russia over its role in Ukraine but has kept political channels of communication open.
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NATO said Monday it will focus on five key areas from deterrence to modernisation and EU relations at its July summit, with measures to "manage" ties with an increasingly assertive Russia high on the agenda.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told lawmakers at the spring session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Warsaw that the summit will also focus on projecting stability in border regions -- particularly in the south -- as well as burden-sharing.
Building on the alliance's 2016 decision to deploy battle groups on its eastern flank facing Russia, Stoltenberg said he expected leaders at the July 11-12 summit in Brussels to "make decisions on reinforcement, readiness and military mobility" of forces.
"Our deterrence and defence is not only dependent on the forces we have deployed, but it also very much depends on our ability to move forces quickly if needed," he said.
NATO member states have deployed around 4,000 troops to the Baltic states and Poland to counter the threat to the alliance's eastern flank, particularly since the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
With relations between Russia and the West at a post-Cold War low, the NATO chief also said he expected the alliance to reiterate its "dual-track" approach towards Moscow, "about deterrence and defence combined with political dialogue".
"Even if we don't believe in a better relationship with Russia in the near future, we need to manage our relationship with Russia," he added.
The 2018 summit comes against a backdrop of increasing concern about growing Russian assertiveness in the areas of cyber and so-called hybrid warfare.
- 'Hybrid warfare' -
NATO allies have accused Russia of using "hybrid warfare" techniques which include subversion, propaganda as well as cyber attacks, to undermine the West without triggering a full NATO military response.
In a special report on countering Russia's hybrid threats, Britain's Lord Jopling told the assembly over the weekend that the alliance should consider a new collective "Article 5B" defence provision to trigger a collective response in the event of a hybrid warfare attack.
"The article would make clear that hybrid attacks would trigger a collective response from the alliance," the report said.
NATO's Article 5 collective defence commitment requires all member states to come to the rescue if any of their peers are attacked.
In March, US General Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of NATO forces in Europe, said member states were working to determine when a cyber attack could be considered to have triggered Article 5.
Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Monday that Russia's planned Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline to alliance-member Germany "is a new hybrid weapon aimed at the European Union, the countries of the European Union and NATO.
Poland and Baltic state NATO members, as well as non-members like Ukraine, have warned that Moscow could use the pipeline to undermine their energy security.
Stoltenberg said that there was no consensus within the alliance on the issue and that it did not "have tools to do anything with that kind of energy project."
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