"In the current situation, dialogue between Russia and NATO is not maintained. Obviously, it is difficult to talk about its resumption until the United States and its allies abandon their aggressive course of undermining Russia’s security and inflicting 'strategic defeat' on it," Tokovinin said, noting that "the channel for information exchange, if necessary, through the Russian Embassy in Brussels remains open."
At the same time, he noted that the channel remains open in case of emergency.
"However, the channel for transmitting information in case of emergency through the Russian Embassy in Brussels remains open," Tokovinin explained.
NATO's July Summit to Continue Course on Confrontation With Moscow
The NATO summit, which will be held in Washington in July, will continue the previously established course of confrontation with Russia and increasing tensions in Europe, Alexander Tokovinin said.
"NATO foreign ministers gathered in Brussels today to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the alliance. This meeting, like previous similar meetings, gives an idea of what priorities will be fixed at the bloc’s summit in July this year. We are talking about the continuation of the course of confrontation with Russia and increasing tension on the European continent, enshrined in the NATO strategic concept adopted at the alliance summit in Madrid in 2022," Tokovinin said.
Having declared Russia the most significant and direct threat to their security, the alliance states are building up their presence near Russian borders and increasing military spending, the ambassador said, adding that it is these approaches that are intended to be confirmed in the decisions of the upcoming meeting of NATO leaders in Washington.
"Nothing will be said about the level of recklessness of NATO’s commitment to escalating the Ukrainian crisis, which is fraught with a slide into a direct military clash between nuclear powers with catastrophic consequences," Tokovinin said.
NATO's Hybrid War Against Moscow Has No Analogues in Cold War History
The hybrid war unleashed by NATO against Russia is unprecedented and has no analogues in the history of the Cold War, Russian Ambassador to Belgium Alexander Tokovinin told Sputnik.
"The hybrid war unleashed by NATO countries against Russia is truly an unprecedented phenomenon that has no analogues in the forty-year history of the Cold War," Tokovinin said when asked if the current situation can be compared to the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the US.
The current situation is complicated by the fact that almost all the "safety locks" that were designed to ensure restraint during the period of Soviet-American rivalry and prevent the situation from getting out of control are now destroyed, the ambassador said.
"The paradox is that, if the public of Western European countries in the 1970s and 1980s of the twentieth century was acutely aware of the threat of the destruction of human civilization as a result of a nuclear conflict, and this problem was then an important part of political life, now this topic has been pushed far away to the periphery of the information space," Tokovinin added.