Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said today that further NATO expansion is in Russia's interest because there is no war where it borders members of the Western alliance.
"NATO expansion is in the interest of Russian security. Where Russia has a border with a NATO member, there is no war. In other places, there is," Lipavsky wrote on the social network X.
The Czech Foreign Ministry said that Lipavsky's comment was not a direct reaction to the statement by US President's envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg that the Kremlin's fears about further NATO expansion were justified.
"That's one of the issues that Russia will talk about. We say - okay, we can stop NATO expansion, so that it doesn't come any closer to your borders. For them, it's a security concern," Kellogg told the American television station ABC.
Czech media reports that one of Russia's main conditions for agreeing to an end to the war in Ukraine will be a written commitment that NATO will not expand further towards Russia's borders.
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