The United States insists that its European allies receive more NATO battalions, ships and planes, ready for battle, as part of a deterrence by the Allies of a possible Russian attack.
On Thursday, at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Pentagon chief James Mattis will seek support for a plan to strengthen his military presence. This meeting will be the preparation for the NATO summit in July, which will have to endorse the proposals made by the ministers.
The plan stipulates that NATO will have 30 ground battalions, 30 fighter squadrons and 30 naval ships, such as destroyers, ready to deploy within 30 days of the alarm. We are not talking about a specific number of troops or the deadline for developing a strategy. The number of battalions in NATO varies from 600 to 1,000 troops.
“We have an adversary (Russia) who can quickly infiltrate the Baltic states and Poland in a ground attack. We don’t have the luxury of months to mobilize, ”said a senior NATO diplomat who knows about US plans.
One American official said the initiative was primarily aimed at countering Russia and was in line with the 2018 Pentagon National Military Strategy, which accuses Moscow of striving to destroy the organization of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Earlier, the European publication of the Politico newspaper, citing documents released by the Polish Ministry of Defense, said Poland expressed its willingness to allocate up to $ 2 billion from its budget to finance a permanent US military base on its territory.
The US Department of Defense allowed an increase in its military contingent in Poland. Moscow said it was ready to respond to the expansion of NATO infrastructure to the borders of the Russian Federation.
Now, as part of the Atlantic Resolve operation, an American tank brigade of about 3.5 thousand troops is deployed on a rotational basis in Poland. It has 400 tracked vehicles, 900 units of wheeled vehicles, 87 Abrams tanks and 18 Paladin 155-mm self-propelled howitzers.
In Russia, angrily commented on the idea of Tuki regarding the destruction of the Russian Federation
Russia will not succeed in destroying, like the Soviet Union, because after the introduction of sanctions against Russia, the country united.
This was stated by a member of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergei Tsekov, according to Russian media.
So Tsekov commented on the statement of the Deputy Minister for the temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons of Ukraine Georgy Tuki that Russia can be destroyed according to the scenario of the USSR, namely, sanctions.
“The main reason for the collapse of the USSR is not sanctions, but the lack of consolidation of Soviet society. Today, Russia is just very consolidated amid all the attacks on us. Therefore, they will not wait, ”the Russian parliamentarian said.
“Sanctions create problems for Russia, but at the same time they create no less problems for the same EU countries and, in particular, Ukraine. The Ukrainian side suffers to a greater extent from the restrictions that it, like a parrot, introduces after Europe and America, ”Tsekov is convinced.
“We never asked anyone back” – Lavrov on the return of the Russian Federation in the G8
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia has never sought to return to the G8 and is focused on other formats of international cooperation, which share its approaches. It is reported by the Russian First Channel.
Lavrov also said that Russia reacted normally to its expulsion from the G8 and the return of countries to the format of the seven.
“We never asked anyone back … And we work perfectly in other formats: in the SCO, in the BRICS, and especially in the twenty where our approaches are shared. Within the framework of the twenty, you’ll not be able to manage with ultimatums, you need to agree there, ”the minister said.
Russian Foreign Minister believes that the G20 is “the most promising format for the future and a mechanism for reaching consensus.”
