According to NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana, NATO military aid to Ukraine amounted to approximately $70.8 billion over the previous year.

"Over the last year NATO allies have provided financial humanitarian and military support to Ukraine worth close to 150 billion euros, including 65 billion euros of military support," Mircea Geoana said in a lecture at Imperial College London.

Check out: What the West has given Ukraine so far

Emphasizing the geopolitical importance of the war in Ukraine, Geoana said that NATO expects the pertinent war with Russia to shape global security for decades to come. His lecture succeeded in the display of dual-use defense and commercial technologies. 

Read more: Lavrov says NATO is already at war with Russia in Ukraine

NATO does not regard China as "an adversary," but rather as a "formidable competitor" with the potential to alter the current international order, according to NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana on Thursday.

"For the first time in centuries, we face a formidable competitor in [the face of] China that has both the intent and the ability to reshape the international order," Geoana said.

The NATO deputy security chief acknowledged that China's rise on the world stage poses "massive challenges," but added that the alliance was not seeking a return to the Cold War and did not view Beijing as "an adversary."

Back in February, Lavrov said that NATO countries who are involved in the war in Ukraine are effectively at war with Russia. During an interview with Sputnik, Lavrov said that Russia is at war with NATO in Ukraine as he dubbed the alliance's rhetoric that in Ukraine "we are not fighting, but only arming" Ukraine as "ridiculous"

"The fact that the West cannot calm down - and, as in the infamous fairy tales, with every step it gets stuck even more in the swamp - this plays an important role in the course of the [Russian special military] operation, this escalation, you are absolutely right, is snowballing," Lavrov said. 

Read more: Lavrov says NATO is already at war with Russia in Ukraine

Today, Russia's FSB security services confirmed that a US journalist working for The Wall Street Journal has been arrested in Russia on charges of spying for Washington.

The FSB security services pointed out that they had "halted the illegal activities of US citizen Evan Gershkovich," specifying that The Wall Street Journal reporter was "suspected of spying in the interests of the American government."

The statement said he had been detained for gathering information "on an enterprise of the Russian military-industrial complex."