NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says that NATO and Russia remain at loggerheads over Ukraine but are considering a proposal to lessen the risk of accidental military confrontations in Baltic airspace.
Speaking after NATO ambassadors briefed Russian envoys on July 13 in Brussels about NATO's July 8-9 summit in Warsaw, Stoltenberg said that "there was not a meeting of the minds today" about Ukraine.
But he said NATO allies would "carefully" study a Russian proposal to use warplanes' transponders for risk reduction in Baltic airspace.
The meeting at NATO's headquarters on Brussels was the first of the NATO-Russia Council since the alliance agreed at the Warsaw summit to bolster its troop presence in Eastern Europe in response to Moscow's aggression in Ukraine.
NATO is reinforcing its allies closest to Russia with four new multinational battalions – about 4,000 soldiers – in Poland and the Baltic states.
Russia has been strongly critical of the NATO decision, accusing the alliance of aggression and warning that it will react to the deployment of forces near its borders.
