"Everything NATO is doing in this area today, to put it bluntly, is the alliance's preparation for a possible military clash with Russia," he told Izvestia.
"And the exercises that are being conducted show how all concepts of cooperative security have now been discarded and NATO has returned to Cold War-era security schemes," he added, TASS reported.
Grushko added that the alliance has launched a hybrid war against Russia. "In the economic sphere, thousands of illegal sanctions have been imposed against our country, in the ideological sphere, the demonization of Russia is taking place, and one of the latest obvious examples is the announcement that if NATO is defeated in Ukraine, the next day Russia will definitely invade Poland and the Baltic states, whose independence was recognized back in the USSR," the diplomat stated.