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We continue to see new propaganda stories around the Russian-Belarusian exercises "Zapad-2017", attempts to "demonize" them. We have seen reports that NATO countries intend to build up military presence near the areas where these maneuvers will be conducted. This raises concerns and may lead to increased risks of incidents.
Russia strictly abides by all existing agreements related to ensuring predictability and transparency of military activities. Our country is one of the leaders in terms of using the instruments of confidence and security-building measures. We accept a large number of evaluation visits and on-site inspections in accordance with the Vienna Document, as well as observation flights under the Open Skies Treaty.
Additional steps are taken in the spirit of goodwill. Representatives of the Ministry of Defense of Russia regularly brief military attaches accredited in Moscow about snap exercises. However, representatives of NATO countries ignore these briefings.
As for the invitation of journalists to our exercises, General B. Hodges was apparently misinformed. In fact, media representatives regularly attend Russian maneuvers. For example, more than 100 journalists from 27 countries covered one of the key stages of the "Kavkaz-2016" strategic exercises. Moreover, media from NATO countries outnumbered other foreign representatives. We invite foreign journalists to attend not only exercises, but also zones of military operations. More than dozen press tours have been organized to Syria.
The root causes for the aggravation of the situation lie in the progressive build-up of the NATO military presence and activities on the so-called eastern flank. If we take only the exercises, then from June to November this year NATO Allies plan to organize more than fifteen complementary maneuvers in the region with the involvement of a few tens of thousands of personnel.
They are conducted in a common operational environment and are aimed at working out a wide range of "deterrence" tasks. As a result of such a cycle, NATO’s enhanced forward presence is being maintained in close proximity to Russia's borders, and intensive mastering of this operational theater accompanied by the development of the military infrastructure is taking place.
If NATO countries are really concerned about the unstable situation in the region, then firstly what they need to do is to curtail their own military activities, which are groundless and contradict the real security needs.

The main topic of today's meeting of the NATO-Russia Council was the military-political situation in Europe. We exchanged briefings on the exercises «Zapad-2017» and «Trident Javelin-2017». In recent months, we have read a lot of scary stories about the «Zapad-2017» exercises, there was a lot of speculations that these exercises will be used to concentrate forces, to implement some aggressive intentions towards certain NATO countries. In response to NRC members requests, Russia’s Defense Ministry has expressed readiness to provide information about these exercises. We informed about the goals of the drills, the training ranges where the exercises will be held, the deployment of troops, as well as about the main kinds of military hardware planned to be used. This is the first stage of providing information about these military drills. The Russian Defense Ministry will hold a similar briefing at the OSCE platform and an expanded briefing in Moscow ahead of the drills, which are still being planned.

I would like to hope that these steps will help to stop the demonization of the training practice of the Russian Armed Forces. If this does not happen, then, of course, the very mechanism of mutual information on military issues will be devalued.

We see evidence of an approaching arms race. Despite the assurances that these measures are not a provocation but a defensive reaction to changes in the area of security, the ongoing military development in NATO countries points in the opposite direction. The bloc has deployed its forces where there were none before and where the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act prohibits the deployment of such forces in this amount or duration. The regions of Central and Eastern Europe are being primed with military units, weapons and equipment. A series of provocative military exercises has been held. To appease its allies, the White House has requested a 41 per cent increase in defence spending for the next fiscal year. This could be the precursor of the deployment of additional forces and infrastructure in Europe.

A propaganda campaign is rising over the Russian-Belarusian Zapad (West) military exercise. At the same time, NATO countries plan to hold over 15 mutually complementing military exercises in the bloc’s eastern area from June to November of this year. They have a common tactical background and provide for training in the entire range of containment tasks. As a result, the annual series of NATO tactical and combat training are aimed not only at maintaining the reinforced military presence of NATO forces in direct proximity to Russian borders but also at intensive development of this theatre of operations, which includes beefing-up military infrastructure. US ballistic missile defence facilities are being developed there. And an unprecedented information campaign is ongoing to discredit Russia.

NATO countries should understand that all these efforts will not become unnoticed for us and will not stay without response in terms of military planning.

NATO is building a new military security situation that we cannot ignore, that we should address using our own military instruments.

For us it’s very clear, if Europe starts buying additional U.S. tanks or German tanks and puts them on the border with the Russian Federation, it will not invoke either regional security or the security of NATO countries, especially those who are advocating increased presence on their soil.

Clearly the state of Russia-NATO relations as major military and political factors on the continent influences the quality of the European and international security. And many Europeans understand that the confrontation is not in the interests of neither Russia, nor Western countries. It is necessary to seek for ways for de-escalation. We are ready for such a dialogue, but on the basis of equality and mutual respect of interests. It is important that this dialogue yields concrete results. First of all, I mean the restoration of systematic channels of mil-to-mil dialogue, including at the level of experts. There has been no progress so far. NATO is clinging to the decisions of the Wales summit. All this turns into a waste of resources and "missed profits" and does not lead to joint actions against common challenges and threats, first of all, terrorism.

We see that NATO continues to improve military infrastructure near the Russian borders. NATO is trying to expand opportunities for reinforcements - this applies to airfields, ports, and the entire logistics chain. A huge complex of measures is being undertaken, which seriously changes military security in the center of Europe. The problem is that for many years military stability has been supported, among other things, by one of the key provisions of the Russia-NATO Founding Act that NATO states will refrain from deploying significant combat forces on the territory of its new members. Now we see that this provision is not being implemented.
As for the necessary measures, we are doing everything necessary to reliably secure our interests and security. This is being done by the means and measures that we deem necessary. NATO is not ready to change its policies. It relates to both the deployment on the eastern flank in June this year, and the scheme of relations with Russia - to conduct a political dialogue, but not to transfer it to the expert level, primarily among the military.

It is in our common interest to prevent military escalation and new arms race. These days many politicians and experts call for de-conflicting, risk reduction, more transparency in military activities. We discuss these issues with the NATO-Russia Council which has resumed its work. However, I would address these calls not to Russia, but rather to NATO countries which increase security risks by their own decisions and actions. The question is whether NATO members seriously believe that a long-term confrontation with Russia would serve NATO’s interests. It is up to NATO to decide. But sound security architecture could not be built against or without Russia. More broadly, in the current security environment no single state or a group of states can create ‘islands of security’. Common security threats demand collective efforts.