NATO eastward expansion would be ‘catastrophic’: Russian official (Source AFP) NATO enlargement into Ukraine and Georgia would have “catastrophic consequences” for Europe, Russia’s envoy to NATO warned Tuesday in a television interview, as relations between Moscow and the West sink to Cold War-era lows. “Any political game concerning NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine is filled with the most serious, most profound geopolitical consequences for all of Europe,” Russia’s permanent representative to NATO, Alexander Grushko, told LifeNews television channel. “I hope that people in Brussels and other capitals fully understand the danger of this game, the danger of the cards some forces are still trying to play. This would have catastrophic consequences,” he told the Russian channel.