The diplomats met in Brussels Monday for the third time this year, with the military alliance insisting on talking about the conflict in Ukraine and Russia's role there, AP reported.
The US-led alliance also wants to discuss ways to avoid incidents and accidents between Russian and NATO forces.
Russia has annoyed NATO with snap war games or by buzzing the alliance's ships and aircraft with fighter jets, as well as what NATO sees as aggressive use of propaganda.
Douglas Lute, the US ambassador to NATO, said on Sunday that the allies "will bring up with our Russian counterpart this pattern of malign influence."