In an interview with the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance is developing plans for a full-scale deployment of armed forces on its eastern borders in connection with the growing military activity of Russia.
The Secretary General is convinced that NATO is now on the path of a "fundamental transformation" taking place as a result of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. He noted that there are about ten times as many troops on NATO's eastern flank now than a few months ago, and the number will continue to grow. According to him, the number of the eastern flank's military personnel has already reached about 40 thousand people.
In June of this year, a NATO summit will also be held, where it will be finally approved how the alliance grouping will look like in the region.
"What we are witnessing now is a new reality, a new normality for European security. We asked our military commanders to provide reboot options, long-term NATO adaptations. I expect the NATO leaders to take decisions on this issue at the summit in Madrid in June", the NATO Secretary General said.
Let us remind you that at the end of 2021, Russia handed over to the United States and NATO demands for security guarantees, among which was a proposal to refuse NATO expansion to the east. Moscow considered the answers received by the alliance as a refusal to provide security guarantees.
On February 24, the Russian Federation launched a special military operation in Ukraine, by order of President Vladimir Putin. A month later, Stoltenberg said that NATO would increase its military presence on its eastern flank on a permanent basis at sea, land and in the air, as well as strengthen air defense, missile defense and cyber defense systems. He also said that four additional multinational battle groups would be established in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
