BRUSSELS (Sputnik) The Russian Envoy to NATO Alexander Grushko said Friday that the proposed Alliance's reforms were aimed primarily at countering Russia.
"Although NATO has been justifying its measures to overhaul its military potential by the need to counter threats on all fronts, we cannot help noticing that all these efforts are focused on countering Russia," he told Russian reporters in Brussels.
Russian Envoy has stressed that it would be hard for Moscow to return to joint projects on Afghanistan after Alliance had suspended them over its split with Moscow.
Grushko has also commented on the surprising decision of the Afghanistan's defense officials to replace Russian helicopters in its military service with NATO ones.
"It’s no secret that the Pentagon has been buying our helicopters for Afghan troops. So the announced plan to switch to other systems [helicopters] has raised eyebrows among experts both in terms of armed forces’ efficiency and the difficulty of such transition," Alexander Grushko said. "Retraining even trained pilots takes a considerable effort and a lot of time," Russian Envoy to NATO told reporters. "The Pentagon’s motives in doing so are clear but they do not align well with the goal to stabilize the country and restore the government’s control over all provinces."
On Thursday, Afghanistan’s Acting Defense Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami has told reporters that his country no longer needed Russian helicopters, citing deliveries by NATO allies.
Earlier, Joseph Dunford, Chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that it would take the Afghan Air Forces up to seven years to switch from the Russian transport assault capable Mi-17 helicopters to the US Black Hawks UH-60.
