Montenegro joined NATO

Montenegro became the 29th member of NATO. The official ceremony was held on June 5 in Washington, D.C. in the building of the US State Department.

On the evening of June 5, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Montenegro's accession to NATO, which refers to the "continuing anti-Russian hysteria in Montenegro." “In the light of the hostile line of the Montenegrin authorities, the Russian side reserves the right to take retaliatory measures on the basis of reciprocity,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

On June 2, Montenegro imposed sanctions against 149 citizens of the Russian Federation and Ukraine, who, according to this state, were involved in the Ukrainian crisis. The list was compiled on the basis of a similar EU list; it included Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev, head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov.

• The prosecutor's office of Montenegro accuses the citizens of the Russian Federation Eduard Shirokov and Vladimir Popov of trying to carry out a coup in the country in October 2016. The conspirators from the Russian Federation and Serbia, according to investigators, were going to kill Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic and disrupt the country's entry into NATO. In February 2017, the special prosecutor of Montenegro explicitly stated the involvement of the Russian special services in the conspiracy.
• The previous NATO enlargement took place in 2009. Then Croatia and Albania joined the alliance.