NATO forces
© AP Photo/ Mindaugas Kulbis
Russia has good reasons to consider NATO a threat, according to a Polish member of the European Parliament.

It's Washington that keeps positioning its troops closer and closer to Moscow and not vice versa, Polish MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke pointed out.

He also criticized the actions of the Polish Law and Justice (PiS), Poland's ruling political party, which actively promotes establishing a NATO military presence in the country. According to Korwin-Mikke, the Polish government's policies remind him of those of pre-WWII Poland, which, as it became apparent in September 1939, ultimately proved to be rather reckless and dangerous.

He argued that while the EU seeks to assume a neutral stance towards Russia, the Polish leadership continues to stubbornly advocate anti-Russian policies.

And Russia's reaction towards NATO expansion appears to be justified, Korwin-Mikke told the newspaper Polska Times.

"From their point of view it looks like this: the Warsaw Pact was dissolved and NATO absorbed Eastern Germany; then it absorbed Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, followed by Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and then by Romania and Bulgaria. And now NATO is attempting to absorb Ukraine," he said.

"There is clear and constant NATO aggression towards Russia, and that's how Russians perceive all of this."

Furthermore, this threat is not a figment of the Russians' imagination, the politician argues; it really does exist.

"It's not about whether I like Russia or not, it's about facts," Korwin-Mikke remarks. "It's not Russian troops getting closer to Washington, it's US troops getting closer to Moscow."