NATO Launches New Multinational Force To Counter Russia

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NATO has launched a new multinational force in Romania to counter Russia along its eastern flank and keep close tabs on Russian presence in the Black Sea.

Jens Stoltenberg, the chief of the military alliance, said NATO’s actions were purely “defensive and proportionate.”

The force will be built around a Romanian brigade supported by troops from nine other NATO countries and will complement a separate deployment of 900 U.S. troops already in place

RT reports:

Here in Romania, our multinational framework brigade is now operational,” Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in Bucharest on Monday, thanking Romania for hosting the brigade.

“We are also seeing increased allied presence in the Black Sea,” the alliance chief noted, adding that NATO jets are busy patrolling the skies over Romania and Bulgaria.

“Our deployments are a direct response to Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said, speaking at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in the Romanian capital.

“NATO’s actions are defensive, proportionate and entirely in line with our international commitments,” he concluded.

Stoltenberg went on to say that members of the alliance are “concerned by Russia’s military buildup close to our borders and its lack of transparency when it comes to military exercises such as Zapad 2017. This highlights the importance of our dual-track approach to Russia,” he said.

What the alliance chief said next, however, sounded more like a mantra.

“Russia is our neighbor. Russia is here to stay. We do not want to isolate Russia. NATO does not want a new Cold War. Our actions are designed to prevent, not provoke conflict.”

Details of the new force size are unclear. Once a small force relying on troops from 10 NATO countries, the land, air and sea deployments will complement some 900 US troops already in place, according to Reuters.

The land component of the multinational force is stationed at a base near the southern Romanian city of Craiova. Aside from Romania, Poland is the biggest troop contributor; Bulgaria, Italy and Portugal will train with the force in Craiova, while Germany is also set to contribute. Apart from routine NATO Black Sea naval patrols, a maritime presence will feature more allied visits to Romanian and Bulgarian ports, training and exercises.

Some Eastern Europeans reportedly want NATO’s new ballistic missile defense shield, which includes a site in Romania, to be part of NATO’s eastern posture vis-a-vis Russia.

“The Aegis Ashore system would add another level of deterrence,” Maciej Kowalski, an analyst at the Polish Casimir Pulaski Foundation, told Reuters.

NATO’s military activities near the Russian border have been repeatedly criticized by Moscow, which has accused the alliance of undermining the security balance with its eastward encroachment and military provocations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York last month that NATO is currently seeking to revive the Cold War climate instead of building a dialogue with Moscow. Russia has long been trying to remove the legacy of the Cold War but received no support in its efforts from its partners in the West, the minister noted, expressing regret that “some countries still prefer force to dialogue.”

“The West constructed its policy on the basis of a principle, ‘If you are not with us, you are against us’ and proceeded with hideous expansion of NATO to the east,” Lavrov said.

3 Comments

  1. PITIFUL STUPID WASTE OF RESOURCES, MAY THEY HAVE THE COMMON SENSE TO FUND THIS IDIOCY WITH A 90% REDUCTION OF THE NATO WAR BUDGET!

  2. Nazionist sabotage of Russia – no change since the Bolshevik Revolution and fictional Russian ICBMs on moving trains. Russia is the only nation supporting Christians and freedom of religion. Rabbinical Talmudist Satanists going for global domination; the Synagogue of Satan.

    • ” 100 Years ago in 1917 the evil forces of the Anti-Christ targeted and killed the Christian ruler of Russia. In 2017 their objective remains the same. Russia removed the last Rothschild Soviet on Christmas Day 1991, his name was Gorbachev.” Michael Hoffman

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