MOSCOW. March 23 (Interfax) - Contacts between Russia and NATO have been disrupted, but in the modern world there is always a technical possibility to organize them, including for the purpose of preventing military incidents, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said.
"The channels are disrupted at this point. In any case, we are living in the 21st century, and if necessary, one can pick up the phone and make a call," Grushko told Interfax on Thursday, when asked whether there is some kind of hotline between Russia and NATO which could help prevent incidents like the one involving the U.S. drone stopped over the Black Sea.
"The point is not the presence or absence of this hotline. The problem is that in this case, when the Black Sea incident occurred, that was an intentional incident," he said.
"That was a provocation, absolutely provocative behavior. That was an intentional incident," he said.
"Of course, you can have a hot telephone [line]. But if a conscious decision is made to commit a provocation, no hot telephone line will help," he said.
The area that the U.S. drone entered "had been declared a security zone in accordance with all international rules," he went on to say. "This is a restricted zone, which was announced in the Russian Federation, and there was an appropriate notification from our defense ministry. The essence of the matter is exactly this here," Grushko said.
So "international rules were violated, which, naturally, resulted in a situation where our pilots were forced to react, [which they did] in a very professional way, without using weapons," Grushko said.
Speaking of the presence of the so-called hotline between Russia and NATO, Grushko said that the subject of systemic and emergency communications between military men has evolved as a result of the adoption in 1986 of a document that was revolutionary at the time, the Document of the Stockholm Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe, which ensured the transparency of essential military activities led by NATO member states and the Warsaw Pact Organization. In June 1989, the Soviet Union and the United States signed an agreement designed to prevent dangerous military activities. The agreement became another step toward elaborating rules of responsible behavior in air, land and sea.
However, there were later some incidents that required solutions in terms of improving such instruments, he said. One of them took place in 1989 when a Soviet MiG-23M fighter jet flew over the territories of several NATO member countries, traveling thousands of kilometers without the pilot who had ejected because of a technical malfunction in the engine. Having burnt all its fuel, the plane hit the ground in Belgium, a few kilometers away from the French border, killing one person.
There was also a discussion on incident prevention between Russia and NATO in 2012-2013, he said.
"We proposed reaching an agreement with them on clear rules of conduct in the air and in waters in order to set out minimum allowed distances of approach, for example, between ships or warplanes. But, regrettably, NATO member countries did not go for it for political reasons at the time," Grushko said.
He also gave the example of Russia-NATO cooperation associated with NATO's increasing military activity after the alliance's enlargement, in the skies above the Baltic Sea and in its waters. "We agreed that an internationally recognized route connecting Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg was going to be created to be used by Russian state and military aviation. Transponders were being used to allow civilian air traffic controllers to see airplanes. That agreement began to work," he said.
The agreement that stipulates sharing flight plans in advance is still in effect but "NATO forces prefer to intercept our planes flying along their routes with transponders on," Grushko said. "That in itself is another evidence that if there is no intention to abide by agreements, then instruments are not functional," he added.
Today, "there is no technical obstacle in the way of making contact, the ability always exists," he went on. "Therefore, if NATO finds it important to give us any information that is essential in military terms, there is plenty of ways to do so," he said.
Russia's mission to NATO was shut down in Brussels "after unacceptable conditions, which made it impossible for our diplomats to work, were put in place," he said. "But our ambassador to Belgium was instructed to facilitate such communications, if necessary. NATO representatives know everyone they can contact in case anything happens," Grushko said.