From RIA Novosti:  By going to war with Georgia in 2008, Russia halted NATO’s expansion eastward, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday.

“If we had wavered in 2008, the geopolitical layout would have been different; a range of countries which the North Atlantic [Treaty Organization] tries to artificially ‘protect’ would have been within it,” Medvedev said at a meeting with military officers in Vladikavkaz in southern Russia. . . .

Russia and the alliance now have “turned back on direct rivalry,” the Russian president added. “However we should acknowledge that we have different stances on how a range of defense issues should be settled.”

NATO’s presence in the proximity to Russian borders concerns the country’s leadership and “creates certain nuisances to us,” Medvedev said. Three former Soviet republics – Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia – are NATO member-states.  (photo Dimitriy Astahov/RIA Novosti)

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