Russia's new military doctrine does not identify NATO as its major threat but Moscow is disturbed by the alliance's "endless enlargement," President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview published Thursday.
Russia has made future NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia a "red line" in its relations with the West. It said in the new doctrine, published Feb. 5, that one of the "main external threats of war" came from the alliance's eastward expansion to Russia's borders.
"NATO is not seen as the main military threat in the military doctrine," Medvedev said in an interview with French weekly magazine Paris Match.
"The issue is that NATO's endless enlargement, by absorbing countries that were once part of the Soviet Union, or who are our immediate neighbors, is of course creating problems because NATO is after all, a military bloc," he said.
Medvedev's comments clarify the stance toward NATO set out in the military doctrine, which reiterated Moscow's long-standing fears of encirclement by the alliance.
Medvedev, who will travel to Paris on March 1, warned that Russia would not remain indifferent if NATO continued to expand and reconfigure missiles near its borders, according to a transcript published in Russian on the Kremlin's web site.
Medvedev also confirmed Moscow's interest in buying an advanced warship from NATO member France. The potential sale is expected to come up when Medvedev meets French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
French Defense Minister Herve Morin on Thursday defended the sale, saying Russia should not be looked at as if it were the Soviet Union. "Russia has changed, and we have to change the way we look at Russia," Morin told a news briefing.
Sarkozy sent his European affairs minister, Pierre Lellouche, to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia this week to calm their nerves over any Mistral deal. Lithuania said Wednesday that Lellouche had given assurances that if the deal went ahead, the ship would be stripped of military technology.
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