NATO-RUSSIA COUNCIL (NRC)

Jan. 14, 2022

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and Russia discussed the ongoing situation in Ukraine and its implications for security in Europe.

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The talks happened at the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) which took place at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
NRC is a forum for consultation with Russia on security issues and cooperation.
NATO was founded in 1949, and is meant to ensure collective protection for its members — the United States, Canada, and American allies in Europe — against the threat of possible post-War communist expansion and aggression by the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union too, formed its own defence and political alliance with Eastern European nations as a counterbalance to NATO — the Warsaw Pact that was signed in 1955. This alliance was disbanded after the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991.
Since April 2014, practical civil and military cooperation under the NRC with Russia has been suspended.
This happened in response to Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, which NATO allies do not recognise and have referred to as “illegal” and “illegitimate”.
This was the first time since WWII that a European nation had annexed territory from another country. The region that Russia annexed in 2014 is now under Russian-backed separatists and even today fighting continues there.