RT
January 10, 2015
The expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe has destroyed the European security order, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told Der Spiegel, adding that the Ukraine crisis could easily lead to nuclear war.
“The expansion of the bloc in the east [of Europe] has destroyed the European security order which was written in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975,” the 83-year-old political veteran told the German newspaper.
He added that NATO’s expansion has become “a 180-degree turn drawing us away from the Paris Charter of 1990, which was made together with all European states to finally leave the Cold War in the past.”
NATO has recently been at loggerheads with Russia over the Ukrainian crisis. The bloc has been intensifying its build-up in Eastern Europe in recent months as it accuses Moscow of sending troops to Ukraine. Moscow has denied what it calls unfounded allegations.