The Kremlin said on Friday that NATO's desire to have a military analogue of the Schengen Zone in Europe to allow the alliance's armed forces to move around freely to counter Russia had ratcheted up tensions and was a cause for concern,
Reuters reports.
The chief of NATO's logistics command JSEC, Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, told Reuters in an interview published on Thursday that he would like to see such a zone.
He said he was worried that too much red tape across Europe was hindering troop movements, a problem he said could cause major delays if a conflict with Russia were to erupt.
NATO is actively supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia and Kyiv hopes one day to join the alliance. However NATO itself is not at war with Russia, a situation which U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders say they want to avoid given Moscow's vast nuclear arsenal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would respond if 'the military Schengen' proposal became a reality.
"The alliance has always regarded our country as a so-called notional enemy. Now it openly considers our country to be an obvious adversary. This (statement) is nothing more than about fuelling tensions in Europe which has consequences," Peskov told reporters.
He said talk of building a 'military Schengen' showed once again that Europe was unwilling to listen to Moscow's legitimate concerns and was ready to boost its own security at Russia's expense.
