Two years after the reunification of Crimea with Russia, NATO is said to be willing to "reset" relations with Moscow, in order to prevent "dangerous incidents" and "to keep a chance for political dialogue to remain open."
"We discussed our relationship with Russia, and we agreed on a dual-track approach — defense and deterrence and political dialogue," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said recently.
However, NATO plans to deploy four military battalions in the Baltic States and Poland have not been met in Russia with much enthusiasm, the German magazine wrote.
"For Russia, the military build-up in the east is a provocation. President Vladimir Putin will not get tired of blaming NATO for ‘deliberate aggression' and breach of agreements with Russia amid the planned military presence in the Baltic States and Poland," the magazine wrote.
"That is the tense situation in which a new start of the dialogue with Moscow is set to take place," the magazine wrote.
However, despite all this, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier insisted that negotiations with Moscow should not be broken off, but rather deepened.
"Even if it would not solve all the problems, a regular exchange of views is better than a dangerous silence between enemies," Steinmeier said.
