YEREVAN, APRIL 20, ARMENPRESS. The first Russia-NATO Council meeting since June 2014 kicked off in Brussels on April 20, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported, “Armenpress” reports citing Sputnik News.

Previous Russia-NATO Council meeting took place on June 2, 2014, just two months after the alliance decided to freeze all practical cooperation with Moscow over Ukraine crisis.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, responding to queries on the Russia-NATO Council meeting agenda on April 19, expressed hope that the meeting would "become a venue for a truly honest, equal and fundamental discussion of vital security issues."

"We intend to express our concern over the bloc’s open policy of military and political deterrence of Russia and the continued eastward movement of its military infrastructure, which we see as contradicting the spirit of the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act," Zakharova stressed.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on April 8 the council agenda would include the "crisis in and around Ukraine, military activity, transparency, risk reductions and Afghanistan."

On Ukraine, Zakharova said that Moscow planned to raise issues with NATO’s assistance to the anti-constitutional coup in Kiev in February 2014 and the use of NATO instructors to train Ukrainian security forces in waging war against their own people, among other pressing subjects.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov summarized Tuesday the meeting’s program as no longer "business as usual" and a "one-way street."

"The agenda which was agreed upon for tomorrow’s session does not only reflect what NATO needs but also what Russia is interested in," Lavrov said late Tuesday.

Stoltenberg echoed the top Russian diplomat’s sentiment that convening the Russia-NATO Council "does not mean that we are back to business as normal."

The NATO-Russia Council was created in 2002 as a mechanism for consultations and cooperation between NATO member states and Russia on a wide range of security issues.

The format was suspended in 2014 amid stained relations over the Ukrainian crisis, as the alliance accused Moscow of the involvement in the conflict.

Russia has repeatedly dismissed the allegations of meddling in Ukrainian affairs and stressed that NATO's military expansion and increased presence near Russian borders undermines regional security.