Serbia is Russian BORDER OF PAIN: NATO and EU must not expand

Why the West and Russia can not agree on a common security policy? Because Putin does not care about borders but spheres of influence, writes author Michael Tuman in the text published on the portal reputable weekly Cait, reports Deutsche Welle. Commenting on the recent NATO summit, Tuman says that some observers from Moscow happy with the "shards that US President left in Brussels", but that is "malice muddled up with disappointment because Donald Trump as well talked about the Russian threat in Brussels." It seems that the Russians settled with the fact that the poor relations with the West are constant, the text says.

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The author wonders why the Russians do not make the more effort about Europeans. As a flagship example he names the meeting of seniors of EU and Russia in St. Petersburg at the end of May, where there was at least an attempt of conversation.

- But attempts were generally not sufficient. Among other things, because conversation gets stuck in the undergrowth of recent history, about NATO expansion, Kosovo War 1999, EU expansion, war of Russia and Ukraine. Those are the things they won't agree on for a long time, but the conflict is not fundamental - writes Tuman.

Foto: Tanjug/AP

In his view, both sides want the inviolability of borders and security for all, but the trouble is that by that means completely different things.

- When Europeans speak of the EU safe limits, they think that you can not just march into a neighboring country such as the Russian troops did in 2014 in Ukraine. That they can not annex the territory of others, such as Russia did with Crimea. When the Russian government talks about safe limits, they think it is a union of states - such as NATO and the EU - must not expand. That relations of power and influence should not be moved. Europeans speak of states and borders, Russians about spheres of influence.

Russian "border of pain", writes Cait, is hundreds of kilometers to the west of the Russian state border.

- It ends at the western border of Belarus and Ukraine. It ends at the borders of Serbia, which, in the view of Russian politicians, should never become a part of NATO or the EU. The confusion about the limits of pain and national boundaries and insisting on spheres of influence today prevents the convergence of EU and Russia. And so Moscow can not profit from the friction between Trump and the EU - concludes the text.

(Telegraf.co.uk /DW)