NATO warned about "wrongly assessing" Russian policy

NATO warned about "wrongly assessing" Russian policy

MOSCOW -- Russia "does not want Ukraine to be split up," NATO intelligence officials say, according to the Russian media outlet RT.

They "warned their colleagues against wrongly assessing Moscow's policy on the crisis in eastern Ukraine."

RT said it was quoting a report in the German magazine Der Spiegel written by intelligence officers from several NATO countries.

"They argue that Moscow is not interested in escalating the situation in Ukraine, and is not going to repeat the scenario of what happened in Crimea," the report said, and added:

"The officers believe that the Kremlin is merely interested in seeing the reorganization of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics into functioning administrative units within a federalized Ukraine, if those regions can reach an agreement with Kiev."

RT further said that "NATO has severed practically all cooperation with Russia in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis, as it is accusing Moscow of sending troops and military equipment to self-defense forces in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics. "

Though NATO did not provide any substantial proof of such accusations, it launched a massive military build-up of troops in the Baltic States and other Eastern European NATO member countries, the article said.

The alliance claims this is needed to build confidence in the respective governments of NATO's protection from an attack by Russia, RT's report said, and added that NATO's new chief, Jens Stoltenberg, stated the alliance's members, particularly the Baltic States, "have complained of an increasing number of Russian military exercises close to their borders."

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