Category Archives: NATO

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is visiting Lithuania and Latvia on Sunday (28 November 2021) together with the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, to demonstrate solidarity with NATO Allies and EU member states in the Baltic region, and to further strengthen the cooperation between NATO and the EU.

In Lithuania, the Secretary General had discussions with President Gitanas Nausda and Prime Minister Ingrida imonyt about developments on Lithuania's border and Russia's military build-up near Ukraine. The Secretary General said that, while the Lukashenko regime is exploiting vulnerable people to put pressure on neighbouring countries, "no NATO Ally stands alone." He said that all Allies have expressed solidarity with Lithuania and have provided practical help, including through a recently deployed NATO team of experts to Lithuania to share information, analysis, and experience in countering hybrid threats.

Mr Stoltenberg explained that cooperation between NATO and the European Union is essential to counter this hybrid campaign. "This crisis affects both NATO and the European Union," he said, adding that "Lithuania is a member of both organisations, so it is important for President von der Leyen and me to be here together today. " He recalled that "NATO and the EU work together on a range of security issues, including countering hybrid threats", stressing that "today, we discussed how we could step up our joint work, including though a new joint NATO-EU declaration, because we are stronger and safer when we work together."

On Russia's military build-up near Ukraine, Mr Stoltenberg called on Russia to be transparent, reduce tensions, and de-escalate: "NATO stands ready to defend all Allies, and we will continue to provide our partner Ukraine with political and practical support."

In Latvia, Secretary General Stoltenberg and President von der Leyen had talks with Prime Minister Krijnis Kari. NATO is strongly committed to Latvias security. Including through the presence of our multinational battlegroup in dai, where ten Allies serve alongside Latvian forces, to deter aggression and preserve peace, he said.

On Monday, Mr Stoltenberg will visit the NATO battlegroup in Adai, led by Canada, one of the four NATO multinational battlegroups deployed in the Baltic region and Poland.

The agenda of the joint visit of the Secretary General and the President of the European Commission also includes briefings on current hybrid challenges by the directors of the NATO strategic communications centre of excellence in Riga, the European centre of excellence for countering hybrid threats in Helsinki, and the NATO cooperative cyber defence centre of excellence in Tallinn.

NATO Foreign Ministers will meet in Riga on Tuesday and Wednesday to consult on a wide range of pressing security challenges in the region and beyond.

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Joint NATO-EU visit highlights solidarity and cooperation through visit to Baltic region - NATO HQ

For the second time in a year, Russia is mounting a major military buildup near its border with Ukraine. The last time, in March and April, did not result in an invasion, but Russian leader Vladimir Putin arguably got what he wanted: the worlds attention. In June, U.S. President Joe Biden held a summit with Putin in Geneva that was reminiscent of the Cold War days when Russia was a superpower like the United States.

Putin, who has called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [twentieth] century, is eager to restore the level of influence his country has enjoyed, and he has the mineral wealth and military capabilities to achieve his objective. Once again, his military buildup has riveted the world. Headlines proclaim concerns about a Russian invasion of Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) iswarning Russiaagainst further aggression.

It seems doubtful that Russia will try to invade and occupy all of Ukraine. Kyiv has an increasingly capable military, and, even if it is defeated, Russia does not want to find itself in another costly guerrilla war like the one in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Putin could more readily expand Russias zone of control in eastern Ukraine, perhaps linking the separatist region of Donbas with Crimea, which was occupied by Russian forces in 2014.

As noted by Eugene Rumer and Andrew S. Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Ukraine isintegral to Putins hopesof reviving the old empire and creating strategic depth against invasion from the West. Putin published an ominous treatise in July describing Ukraine as an inalienable part of Russia, laying the justification for invading it if he so desires.

How should the United States and its allies respond to the latest threat of aggression against Ukraine? The most powerful deterrent in the Wests arsenal is NATO membership. The only countries that Putin has invadedGeorgia and Ukraineare not NATO members. He has been careful to keep his aggression against NATO members (e.g., disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, and naval and air operations near members borders) below the threshold of NATOs collective defense provision, known as Article V.

Ukraines pro-West president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been pressing Washington for a timeline forUkrainian accession to NATO, but he has so far been rebuffed. NATO has repeatedly proclaimed that no outside power (read Russia) will have a veto over NATO expansion, but a de facto Russian veto exists. Putins invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 made those countries too hot to handle for NATO: Most members, including the United States, do not want to expand the alliance to a country that is already locked in hostilities with Russia because they could be drawn into the fight.

But there is a good deal that the United States and its allies can do to buttress Ukraine against Russian aggression even without offering it an Article V guarantee. Biden has been off to a good start in this regard by hosting Zelensky at the White House and making clear that,as he put it, The United States remains firmly committed to Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression.

That is a welcome contrast from the Donald Trump administration, when the president held up military aid to Ukraine to try to force Zelensky to make unwarranted accusations of corruption against then candidate Biden. The United States has resumed military aid to Ukraine, including Javelin anti-tank missilesfirst delivered by the Trump administrationthat would be of great utility in fighting a Russian armored invasion. Since 2014, the United States has provided Ukraine with more than$2.5 billionin military assistance. The latest commitment, $60 million, was announced prior to Zelenskys White House visit.

However, Biden needs to do more to increase the economic cost to Russia of its aggression. One of the biggest points of leverage is the nearly completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will carry natural gas from Russia to Germany underneath the Baltic Sea. It will bypass existing pipelines that run through Ukraine, depriving it of aroundone billion eurosper year in transit payments. Nord Stream 2 will increase Europes dependence on Russian gas and leave Ukraine vulnerable to politically motivated Russian gas shutoffs.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration essentially threw in the towel onNord Stream 2, lifting sanctions on the company building the pipeline and describing its construction as a fait accompli. But now, a German energy regulator has refused to certify the pipeline, raising fresh questions about its future. The Biden administration should reimpose sanctions related to the pipeline, as urged by abipartisan group of lawmakers, while offering to provide Europe with more U.S. natural gas and help in its transition to renewable energy.

John McCain, the late U.S. senator, once described Russia as a gas station masquerading as a country. The most effective way to hurt Putinand protect Ukrainecould be at the pump.

This piece, first published by the Council on Foreign Relations, is used with permission.

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Energize NATO's Response to Russia's Threats Against Ukraine - Defense One

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks about infrastructure investment at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering in College Park, MD, U.S., August 9, 2021. Patrick Semansky/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

WASHINGTON, Nov 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Latvia and Sweden next week to attend Transatlantic and European security meetings and hold bilateral talks, the State Department said on Friday.

The trip, which will take place between Nov. 29 and Dec. 2, comes at a time of rising tension between Russia and the Western military alliance following a build-up of Russian forces near the border with Ukraine.

While in Riga, Blinken will attend a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and hold bilateral talks with NATO counterparts. In the Swedish capital Stockholm, ministers from members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will discuss concerns about the Europe-Eurasia region's security environment, the State Department said.

U.S., NATO and Ukrainian officials have raised the alarm in recent weeks over what they say are unusual Russian troop movements closer to Ukraine, suggesting that Moscow may be poised to launch a new attack on its neighbour, accusations Russia has rejected as fear-mongering.

Russia's intentions remain unclear, and East-West tensions are running high with Ukraine, Russia and NATO all conducting military drills and Moscow accusing Washington of rehearsing a nuclear attack on Russia earlier this month.

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Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Tim Ahmann, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Philippa Fletcher

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Blinken to visit Latvia and Sweden next week for NATO, OSCE talks - Reuters

Belarusian autocrat Alexander Lukashenko has cleared out the encampment at his border crossing into Poland, where thousands of Middle Eastern migrants had been living in squalor.

Last week, that border crossing was the site of clashes between asylum-seekers trying to push through the razor wire and Polish troops resisting with water cannons.

While the crisis between Warsaw and Minsk has not ended, it appears to have been temporarily eased.

Behind the clash was the recent election in Belarus that the European Union saw as fraudulent and Lukashenko's interception of a commercial airliner to kidnap and imprison a critical journalist.

Lukashenko brought in the migrants from the Mideast and moved them to the border, forcing the Poles to deploy security forces to block their entry. Lukashenko's actions were in retaliation for Poland's support of the sanctions the EU had imposed on Belarus.

So it was that, last week, a NATO ally, Poland, had a confrontation with a close ally of Vladimir Putin's Russia, which could have resulted in a shooting war that could have drawn in Russia and the United States.

While Belarus, perhaps at Putin's insistence, has pulled the migrants back from the border and eased this crisis, the same cannot be said of the crisis developing around Ukraine.

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For days now, U.S. officials have been warning that the 100,000 Russian troops stationed near the borders of Ukraine may be preparing for an invasion.

As Ukraine is not a NATO ally, the U.S. is under no obligation to come to Kyiv's defense. But any Russian invasion to expand the share of Ukraine it now controls could produce a crisis more serious than Putin's annexation of Crimea or support for the separatists in the Donbas.

For Putin, the situation in the Black Sea, where U.S. warships and warplanes lead NATO vessels on regular visitations, must truly stick in the craw.

When Putin was a KGB officer in the last days of the Soviet Empire, Romania and Bulgaria on the Black Sea were Warsaw Pact allies. Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia on the Black Sea were, like Russia itself, Soviet republics of the USSR. NATO Turkey alone excepted, the Black Sea was a Soviet lake.

And today? Romania and Bulgaria are NATO allies of the United States. Ukraine and Georgia, having broken free of the USSR at the end of the Cold War, are independent nations that look to Europe, not Moscow.

The goal of both is become NATO allies under the protection of the U.S. and its nuclear umbrella.

Another consideration: Ukraine and Russia have historic ties -- religious, ethnic, cultural -- that go back 1,000 years.

What Putin sees in Russia's loss of Ukraine and Kyiv's alignment with the U.S. and the West was what Americans of Abraham Lincoln's generation saw when France exploited our preoccupation with the Civil War to turn Mexico into a subject nation of the French Empire.

Every nation involved in the migrant crisis on the Polish border and the gathering crisis around Ukraine was either a Soviet republic or a Warsaw Pact member during the Cold War, when Putin was a KGB officer.

All four nations -- Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus -- were, not so long ago, vital interests of Moscow. And none had ever been a vital interest of the distant United States. And no U.S. Cold War president ever thought so.

Dwight Eisenhower did not intervene to save the Hungarian Revolution when it was crushed by Soviet tanks. John F. Kennedy did not tear down the Berlin Wall as it was going up. Lyndon B. Johnson did not intervene to stop Warsaw Pact armies from invading Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring.

And Ronald Reagan did not put the Polish Communist regime in default on its huge unpaid debt when it crushed Solidarity.

Who rules in Minsk has never been a vital interest of the United States. Nor has the location of the Russia-Ukraine border or the political orientation of the regime that rules in Kyiv.

Avoiding a war with Russia that could go nuclear, however, has always been a vital strategic interest, especially since Moscow acquired nuclear weapons. Every American president has known that.

And avoidance of war with the United States has been a guiding principle of Russian foreign policy from Stalin to Putin.

No political dispute in the east of Europe alters these realities.

A NATO alliance built around Article V -- the declaration that a Russian attack on any one of 30 nations will be regarded as an attack on the United States and answered by military action by the United States -- is an anachronistic pledge that belongs to a dead era.

After all, the only war that NATO, "the most successful alliance in history," ever fought, Afghanistan, it lost and left after 20 years.

Let the nations of Eastern Europe solve their problems without the constant intervention of the United States.

Given the disastrous record of the neocon wars of the 21st century, the U.S., facing every new crisis, ought to ask itself before acting:

Why is this quarrel any of our business?

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PAT BUCHANAN: NATO playing with fire on Russia's borders - Sioux City Journal

The EU and NATO leaders pledged today to step up co-operation in the face of "hybrid" threats during their visit to Lithuania, which focused mainly on the Belarus migration crisis and the strengthening of the Russian military presence near Ukraine.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has once again called on Russia to "de-escalate" the crisis on its border with Ukraine and warned of the "costs and consequences" of resorting to violence on its part.

Stoltenberg and Ursula von der Leyen are visiting Lithuania ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in neighboring Latvia. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will also attend the meeting to express his concerns about the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border.

Stoltenberg and von der Leyen both accused Belarus of orchestrating the immigration crisis, something Minsk denies. Thousands of people, mostly from Middle Eastern countries, have passed or attempted to cross in recent months from Belarus to EU countries, mainly Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

"In order to react to such events, it is important that the EU and NATO work hand in hand," von der Layen told a joint news conference with Stoltenberg and the Lithuanian leadership.

"We discussed ways in which we can strengthen our common work, mainly through a new joint declaration, because we are stronger and more secure when we work together," Stoltenberg said.

Ursula von der Leyen stressed that the EU has decided to triple, to 200 million, the resources earmarked for border management in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland for this year and 2022. She clarified that this amount will be given for patrol vehicles and for electronic border surveillance, using unmanned aerial vehicles.

"If the security situation worsens further, we do not rule out the possibility of consultations under Article 4 of NATO," warned Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, referring to the situation on the border with Belarus.

Poland has also warned that it may invoke this article.

For Stoltenberg, the "unusual" reinforcement of Russian forces, with tanks, artillery, drones and thousands of soldiers near the Ukrainian border, is "very worrying for many reasons" and especially "because it was not provoked and cannot be explained." "The message to Russia is that it must de-escalate, reduce tensions and show transparency," he said, adding that if Moscow "decides to resort to violence, there will certainly be consequences."

Source: RES-EAP

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EU, NATO pledge to step up co-operation on 'hybrid threats' - 9.84

MiG-31: Russia has given a big boost to its combat capability by upgrading the Foxhound or MiG-31 fighter jet.This development comes shortly after Moscow unveiled a medium combat aircraft Checkmate while projecting it as a game-changer, and signed a deal with China to develop a heavy-lift helicopter.

Two Russian MiG-31 interceptors, early this year, flew over the North Pole, marking an important milestone for the countrys navy.

The MiG-31 Foxhound has made several world records. It reached an absolute maximum altitude of 37,650 meters in 1977, and set a time-to-height record of 35,000 meters in 4 minutes, 11.78 seconds, both of which were set by the famous MiG test pilot Alexander Fedotov.

Needless to say, Russia has been making consistent efforts to modernize its air power and the MiG-31 upgrade is the latest effort in that direction.

The country is now carrying out trials of the upgraded MiG-31 fighter-interceptor with a fly-by-wire control system, managers of the Sokol Aircraft Plant told Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko during his visit to the facility on November 25.

Krivoruchko inspected the units production capacities and checked the pace of work on repairing and upgrading MiG-31 fighters. He also held a meeting on completing the defense procurement plan, as part of his working trip to the Volga area.

There is an option of upgrading this aircraft where we switch from the mechanical to the fly-by-wire control system, which yields a host of computers mounted on the plane, said Sokol Aviation Enterprise.

The fighters onboard equipment will be totally replaced; the combat plane will also be examined for flaws in order to replace corrosion portions that could account for 15 to 50 percent of the total weight. The fighters canopy, as well as all of the wiring and rubber parts, will be entirely overhauled.

Sokols main duty now is to carry out substantial repairs on the MiG-31 fighter-interceptor, as well as a heavy upgrade to the MiG-31BM level, which has been a work in process since 2007.

The modification of MiG-31 high-altitude fighter-interceptors will improve the efficiency of their operations, particularly in protecting Russias northern borders in the backdrop of other countries growing interest in the Northern Sea Route, said Major-General Vladimir Popov, a top military pilot and defense expert.

With the tensions between Russia and NATO countries growing in the region and Moscow announcing that its radars intercepted about 40 spy planes and drones in about one week of tensions, this announcement comes at a very appropriate moment.

In March this year, two Russian MiG-31 Foxhound supersonic high altitude interceptor aircraft had flown over the North Pole marking a significant milestone for the countrys navy.

Introduced in 1981, the MiG-31 is a long-range, two-seater supersonic interceptor aircraft. Day or night, the MiG-31 can operate well in any weather situation while adhering to visual flight rules (VFR) and instrument flight regulations (IFR). The MiG-31 was the first Soviet fighter plane to be capable of genuine look-down and shoot-down.

In July 2020, Russias Defense Ministry revealed its intention to invest in a MiG-31 Foxhound interceptor modernization and life extension program. The MiG-31 features a streamlined and aerodynamic fuselage that allows it to fly at high speeds and low altitudes. The aircraft is designed to track several targets at high altitudes at the same time.

One of the most potent variants of the MiG-31 is the MiG-31BM. It is a multifunctional long-range fighter aircraft with high speed and the ability to kill both air and ground targets.

Upgraded avionics, hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) controls, liquid-crystal color multifunction displays (MFDs), a robust on-board computer system, digital data linkages, and phased array radar are all included in the variant. It has the capability of intercepting 24 targets at once.

The MiG-31 is equipped with four long-range Vympel R-33E air-to-air missiles. The R-33 can be launched in inertial navigation mode to shoot at the target from a long distance.

For initial acquisition and mid-course updates, it can be directed in semi-active radar homing (SARH) mode. The Cold War-era warplane was designed to take out huge, fast targets like the American SR-71 Blackbird, B-1 Lancer bomber, and B-52 Stratofortress.

The aircraft is also equipped with four short-range R-60MK missiles and two Bisnovat R-40TD1 medium-range missiles. A six-barrel 30mm internal cannon (Ghs-6-23M) is installed above the starboard main landing gear bay of the aircraft. The cannon contain 800 rounds of ammunition and can fire at a rate of over 10,000 rounds a minute.

MiG-31BM can accommodate the AA-12 Adder missile and various Russian air-to-ground missiles (AGMs) such as the AS-17 Krypton anti-radiation missile (ARM).

The N007 Zaslon phased array radar aboard the MiG-31 is the worlds first electronically scanned radar. Its also known as the SBI-16 Zaslon (Flash Dance), and its controlled by a weapons system officer (WSO) from the back cockpit. Early warning radar (EWR) and aerial warning and control systems can send signals to it (AWACS).

Zaslon can scan a distance of 200 kilometers. The radar can track 10 targets and engage four of them at once in the aircrafts immediate vicinity (behind and below the aircraft).

According to one count, there are 252 MiG-31s in the inventory of the Russian Air Force. Moscow began modernizing its Foxhound fleet to the MiG-31BM and BSM variant starting in 2010 with plans to have 100 upgraded by 2020.

The 35-year-old MiG-31 is expected to serve until 2030. Moscow says that the MiG-41 or PAK-DP, a dedicated Mach 4 interceptor, will be developed to replace the Foxhound in the air defense role.

This is puzzling, given that the Kremlin has only funded the manufacture of 10 advanced PAK-FA stealth aircraft thus far, raising the question of whether it can afford to deploy a significantly more specialized platform as well.

The combat efficiency of MiG-31 fighter-interceptors will increase threefold following substantial repairs and upgrades, claims Sokol.

Meanwhile, the upgrade, in which the onboard radio-electronic equipment is fully replaced with advanced technology envisages using the latest air-launched weapons, which will boost the planes combat efficiency by about three times, the Sokol management said.

The MiG-31 is one of Russias most widely deployed combat aircraft, with several hundred more in reserve.

New variants of the Foxhound, according to Aleksandr Osokin, head designer at the Sokol Aircraft Plant, where MiG-31s are repaired, are around 2.6 times as capable as the original Cold War-era planes.

The aircraft were meant to intercept not just all types of enemy aircraft, from bombers and observation planes to fighters and airborne early warning jets, but also missiles, with the aircraft being particularly capable of intercepting low-altitude cruise missiles.

Now with the latest upgrade, the capability is expected to rise manifold. The fly-by-wire systems are computer-controlled. The hands-on design allows pilots to get a clear, tactile sense of how the aircraft handles aerodynamic forces as it flies. This will enhance the combat power by restricting the number of manual controls that the pilot otherwise has to perform.

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Russias Ground-Breaking MiG-31 Fighter Interceptor Aircraft To Be Heavily Modified Amid Tensions With NATO - EurAsian Times

BRUSSELS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that the alliance would still need to talk to Russia after Moscow suspended its diplomatic mission to the alliance over an espionage dispute.

That means relying on a hotline between Russia's chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, and Tod Wolters, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, as well as Stoltenberg's meetings with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, officials and diplomats said.

Russia has also left open the possibility of diplomacy through its embassy in Belgium, although formal meetings in the NATO-Russia Council format are now frozen.

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"The relationship between NATO and Russia is now at the lowest point since the end of the Cold War. For us, that's actually not an argument against dialogue," Stoltenberg told a news conference.

Russia said on Monday it would halt the activities of its diplomatic mission to NATO after the Western military alliance expelled eight Russians saying they were spies.

Two others were denied accreditation, as NATO cited allied intelligence that the Russian diplomats were not in fact envoys but spies with access to allied headquarters seeking weaknesses in NATO's computer networks.

Moscow denies all accusations.

Lavrov also said staff at NATO's military mission in Moscow would be stripped of their accreditation from Nov. 1, and the alliance's information office in the Russian capital would be shuttered.

Stoltenberg said he regretted that decision.

"We strongly believe that especially when tensions are high, and things are difficult, it's important (to have dialogue)," Stoltenberg said.

The West and Russia remain at odds over Ukraine and whether NATO has the right to expand eastwards, but the Russia-NATO Council sessions had allowed both sides to air grievances and try to avoid any accidental clashes in the region.

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Reporting by Robin Emmott;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, William Maclean

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NATO will still seek channels with Russia despite spy ...

November 25, 2021

The President of Poland, Andrej Duda, requested this Thursday more support for NATO to confront Belarus hybrid attack on the border with that country, where he denounced attempts by armed migrant groups to enter the country. The intensity is more dangerous than a few days ago, because those migrants who illegally attack the border () have dangerous instruments such as knives, metal bars or tear gas, said Duda at a press conference after meeting with the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, at the Alliance headquarters.

The Polish president assured that they have proof that these people have been pushed to the border by Belarusian military in uniform and that they have been militarized by Belarusian forces. Otherwise, how could migrants equip themselves with gas? ? , He wondered about a attack which he considered hybrid but civil in nature.

In any case, not appreciating a military attack on the border, he ruled out the possibility of invoking Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which provides for consultations between the allies in the face of a threat, although he said that we continue to keep it in mind, we know that there is that possibility . But there is no basis now to invoke it, he added.

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The Polish politician said that in the meeting with Stoltenberg he offered him First hand information of what is happening on the eastern flank of the Alliance. The methods have changed, he said, referring to the fact that they have evolving from a frontal attack () with hundreds of thousands of migrants attacking the border defended by Polish border officials to the migrants being taken to shelters but now small groups attack the border at night . We have registered more than 750 attacks, he summarized.

They also discussed the reinforcement of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border and Duda said he offered Stoltenberg to increase the disposition of NATO forces in this part of Europe, on the eastern flank, consider increasing the military presence and reinforce the air patrol in that area. We treat the matter very seriously, we follow the events closely, he concluded.

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Poland asks NATO for more support in the face of Belarus's hybrid attacks - The Times Hub

A top diplomat for a NATO member country says the North Atlantic military alliance plans to discuss ways to deter Russia during a summit next week.

Lithuanian Foreign MinisterGabrielius Landsbergis toldReutersin an interview published Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinNATO to discuss ways to deter Russia: Lithuanian official Putin says he took experimental nasal COVID-19 vaccine US leads a global release of oil from reserves, but will it outmaneuver OPEC+? MORE may be using theBelarus border crisis as a distraction from other actions to cause regional instability.

The crisis at the border involves thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa attempting to cross into European Union (EU) member countries that border Belarus such as Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. As The New York Times reported, the crisis appears to be largely manufactured by Belarus's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, as a way to unsettle the EU.

"Creating all those tactical instabilities on the border, having us all paying 100 percent attention to these issues, Putin might be ready to make a strategic move,"Landsbergis told Reuters, saying it was unclear if Russia's next move "would be a military action against Ukraine ... because in 2014 the scale was limited."

"It's very difficult now to be certain of the impact and their thinking,"he added following a meeting withU.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.

At the same time as the Belarus border crisis, the U.S. has warned of unusual Russian military activitynear the border of Ukraine, sparking concerns that Russia may attempt to invade the country like it did when it annexed Crimea in 2014.

Russia has shot back at these claims, saying it is free to deploy its military within its borders however it wishes.

NATO, which Russia is not a member of, is set to meet next week inLatvia's capital city of Riga. According toLandsbergis, the topic of Russia's recent military activity will likely command much of this meeting.

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NATO to discuss ways to deter Russia: Lithuanian official | TheHill - The Hill

Russia's relations with the West have come to a head. NATO expansion, which Putin brought up again in a recent speech, is a well-known issue for Russia. What is not often mentioned is that this is also an issue for the bloc.

When decisions were taken in the 1990s, it was not considered that expansion would require a real extension in safety guarantees for a large number of new countries. It was presumed that Russia would either integrate somehow into the general order, or simply would not pose a threat for a long time. This did not materialize, partially due to the preservation of NATO, and the fact that Russia's recovery occurred faster than expected.

As a result, decorative institutes which imitated cooperation between Russian and the alliance crumbled. Now a militarized standoff has recurred, and NATO must be held accountable for its promises.

But the willingness of allies to carry out dangerous missions is, to put it mildly, low. Defending a string of countries that joined at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century is difficult from a military standpoint. Moreover, the multiplicity of opinions within the bloc is incomparable with what existed previously.

The new Cold War between Russia and the U.S. has, in fact, had a positive impact on relations between the two nations: They are now simpler and stricter.

The situation within Europe is worse, because it is an entity loosely linked without a political will of its own, and a unified strategic position in such a diverse association is impossible in principle. This is where the biggest risks lie.

Russia is tempted to take advantage of Europe's rift to correct the military-political results of 30 years ago. Europe is forced to invent more and more exotic ways of demonstrating its viability. And the U.S. is caught between reorientation toward Asia (priority) and continuing containment in Europe (tradition and symbol).

All of this causes tension, which is not conducive to the mechanisms for maintaining stability.

According to Vladimir Putin, tension create opportunities these are the lessons learned from the Cold War.

The question is whether this will work today. We have reached a point where the long-standing controversy over NATO enlargement must somehow be resolved.

Resolution will come from either by reaffirming the right to expand, or recognizing that the logic of "everyone has the right to enter the alliance," the idea on which post 1991 NATO expansion was based, is no longer valid. Both options carry many risks.

What is disconcerting about the president's speech is the return to strictly Western-centrism. Non-western components were listed most likely for the sake of order, as even China is linked to the West by trying to destabilize it.

It is clear that Russia cannot abandon the agenda of the past 30 years, too much is connected with it. The main thing is not to drown in it once again. After all, regardless of what happens in Europe, it will remain a strategic periphery.

And for Russia's international posture it will be not decisive, but auxiliary.

A Russian version of this article was first published by Kommersant.

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NATO Expansion Is a Bugbear for Both Russia and the West - The Moscow Times