Media: NATO deploys forces in the east in preparation for war with Russia
The reason for the numerous deployments of NATO forces in Eastern Europe has finally been revealed: the alliance wants to prepare for war with Russia, German web site NEOPresse writes.
As the publication emphasizes, NATO has been augmenting its military presence in Eastern Europe since 2015. It all began with Poland, and in 2016, corresponding measures spread to Baltic states – Latvia and Lithuania. Together with the deployment of rapid response squads, new military bases were organized, and dozens of tanks and armored transports were transferred to them.
In this way NATO officially reacted to “Russia’s aggression in Ukraine”, the article’s author observes. Russia, in turn, saw such mobilization as a violation of agreements in the area of political security.
However, NATO has gone even further now, NEOPresse writes. From the alliance’s perspective, Russia could try to cut the Baltic states off from the rest of Europe. As the publication explains, there is the so-called Suwalki Gap – the narrow stretch between Poland and Lithuania which borders on Russia’s ally Belarus on the one side and Russian Kaliningrad on the other.
NATO fears that Russia may carry out an operation from there which aims to isolate the Baltic states from their allies, in order to prevent them from receiving supplies, and to paralyze defense until Russia occupies the Baltic, the publication states.
In order to prevent such a course of events, NATO has been holding exercises which rehearse a possible war with Russia. The alliance’s divisions in Poland demonstrated their ability to move beyond NATO’s limits in Poland, and make a tactical march to the Rukla locality in Lithuania. Air and ground forces from the US, Great Britain, Poland, Latvia and Croatia took part in the exercises. At the same time, a rumor is spreading in the alliance that Russia is planning its own, even larger-scale exercises for more than a hundred thousand soldiers. However, these are currently only baseless attempts to justify themselves, NEOPresse assures.