'NATO attempts to contain Russia raising conflict risk'

Russia on Friday accused NATO of increasing the threat of conflict, insisting attempts by the US-led alliance to curb Moscow have left ties at their lowest ebb since the USSR collapsed. "At present NATO-Russian relations are at their worst since the end of the Cold War," the foreign ministry in Moscow said in a statement.

The ministry said NATO was pursuing a policy of "containment" towards Russia that has seen it bolster its forces along the country's border in eastern Europe."The direct consequence is the increase in the potential for conflict in Euro-Atlantic region," it said.

The broadside from Moscow came a day after NATO leaders met in Brussels. The threat from Russia has tended to be a major focus of NATO summits since Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and then backed a bloody separatist insurgency.But the meeting on Thursday saw the Russia issue relegated as US President Donald Trump blasted allies for not spending enough on defence and steered clear of saying Washington would stick to NATO's Article 5 collective defence guarantee.

The Kremlin has long berated NATO for expanding into what it sees as its traditional sphere of influence along its Western flank. NATO is deploying four battalions to Poland and the Baltic states to calm nerves that have frayed since the seizure of Crimea in the region formerly under Moscow's control.

Billionaire leader Trump has previously called NATO "obsolete" and insisted it should do more to combat terrorism.

Meanwhile, European Union president Donald Tusk called on Friday on G7 leaders to maintain sanctions on Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, but the White House said it did not yet "have a position" on

the issue.

The EU and United States under then president Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Moscow over its 2014 annexation of Crimea and fighting in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russia rebels. But it is as yet unclear whether Obama's successor Donald Trump, who is under fire domestically over allegations that Russia meddled to aid his election campaign last year, will maintain these sanctions.

"Since our last G7 summit in Japan, we haven't seen anything that would justify a change in our sanctions policy towards Russia," Tusk, who coordinates policy for the EU's 28 leaders, told reporters in Sicily. "I will appeal to the other G7 leaders to reconfirm this policy," he added before the latest summit of seven leading industrialised nations kicked off in the town of Taormina, with Trump one of four leaders new to the G7 party.

Tusk already met with Trump on Thursday in Brussels, and said that while both sides did not have a "common position about Russia", they appeared to be on the same line where the Ukrainian conflict is concerned.In March, the US State Department said Washington's "Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine".