A combination of file photos show Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) at a news conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on Feb. 28, 2017 and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, May 25, 2017. (Xinhua)

MOSCOW, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has never changed its plan to absorb geopolitical space after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Lavrov made these remarks during an interview with Belarusian media on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and Belarus, according to a transcript published on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website.

"We have repeatedly made sure that all these preparations, which are now being implemented, when the infrastructure of NATO is approaching our common borders, when new military units are sent there, under the slogan of constant rotation, which means constant deployment in all practical senses, that all these pretexts, which are used to justify such actions, are false," Lavrov said.

Noting that NATO is constantly building military units and infrastructure on the former Soviet bases, primarily in the Baltic states and Poland, the minister stressed that NATO's strategy does not help build good-neighborliness, confidence and remove concerns in the region.

On the bilateral ties, Lavrov said the two countries were developing the closest cooperation possible in the context of the two-year program of coordinated foreign policy action, which allowed them to synchronise all of their actions on a daily basis.

The Russian minister also said his country was not resentful at Belarus' rapprochement with the EU. "As to the process of rapprochement between Belarus and the European Union, we are not allergic to that. There is no jealousy whatsoever," he added.