The New York Times: NATO has reduced cooperation in Russia

A year ago, NATO cut cooperation with Russia as punishment for that country's intervention in Ukraine, The New York Times writes. However, the Russian delegation at NATO headquarters in Brussels still employs more than 50 employees - more than in the representative offices of some NATO countries, explains journalist Michael R. Gordon.

And now NATO has announced that delegations of “partner countries” (Russia has this status) should have no more than 30 employees. In public statements, the alliance attributed this to an administrative decision to limit the size of such delegations.

But Western officials say the move also follows a confidential report from NATO's Civilian Intelligence Committee, which concluded that the Russian delegation previously included intelligence agents.

Officials who wished to remain anonymous, noticed that the fact of the presence of spies in the Russian delegation did not shock anyone, and the reduction of staff is unlikely to eliminate the risk of espionage. But, in their opinion, now it will be easier to fight the problem of espionage.

In addition, officials noted, now that cooperation between Russia and NATO has been suspended, there are many more staff in the Russian delegation than may be needed.

At the time of publication, the representative office of the Russian Federation to NATO did not comment on this decision.

The correspondent notes: “This step is just the latest snag in a relationship that has been rocky from the very beginning.”

President Putin objected to the admission of Central Europe to NATO and the expansion of the alliance, as well as NATO’s plans to deploy missile defense in Europe.

“Yet NATO sought to cooperate with Russia, including on Afghanistan, maritime operations and counterterrorism,” the article says.

Returning to the new measures, Gordon writes that partner countries have 9 months to prepare for limiting the number of delegations and the country will decide for themselves which staff will remain working.

“According to Western officials, it is possible that in reality the new restrictions will affect only one partner country - Russia,” the author reports.