Moscow's top diplomat has warned his government would take responsive measures to an upcoming, massive U.S. military deployment and U.S.-led exercises across multiple European states bordering Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told official government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta in an interview Monday that "naturally, we will react" to the NATO Western military alliance's Defender-Europe 20 exercise, which is due next month to begin facilitating the largest U.S. military deployment to Europe in 25 years. The majority of the drills are set to take place in May and June, involving some 36,000 personnel—including 25,000 from the U.S.—across Germany, Poland and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
"We cannot ignore these processes, which are of great concern, but we will respond in such a way that does not create unnecessary risks," Lavrov added. "It's unavoidable. I hope that any normal military official and politician understands this."
"Those who provoke this kind of absolutely unjustified doctrine want a response in order to continue to escalate tensions," he added. "But it's worth noting that everything that we do in response to the threats created by NATO members to our security we do exclusively on our own territory. Just like all our nuclear weapons are on our territory, unlike American nuclear weapons."
U.S. Army Europe describes Defender-Europe 20 as "the deployment of a division-size combat-credible force from the United States to Europe, the drawing of equipment and the movement of personnel and equipment across the theater to various training areas." The large-scale movement is "linked" to six major U.S.-led exercises: Allied Spirit XI, Dynamic Front 20, Joint Warfighting Assessment 20, Saber Strike 20, Swift Response 20 and Trojan Footprint.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg insisted Monday that "Defender Europe is not directed against any particular country," according to an article by Agence France-Presse and Japan's Jiji Press featured in The Japan Times and shared by NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu. "Russia has every right to feel secure within its borders, but so do our member st
ateaNATO was formed in 1949 as a collective security pact to defend against the Soviet Union and has since grown into a 29-member alliance that has expanded eastward to Russia's borders. Moscow formed its own Cold War-era treaty, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955, but the agreement fell apart along with the Soviet Union in 1991 and every sovereign member other than Russia has since joined NATO.
Other nations such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that gained independence from the Soviet Union have also joined the U.S.-led coalition, expressing concern that Russia was again attempting to assert its influence across the borders of Eastern Europe. Moscow, however, has argued that it was NATO destabilizing regional security by allowing the Pentagon to deploy advanced missile defense systems since Washington left the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002.
Both NATO and Russia have bolstered their flanks in response to growing tensions surrounding Ukraine in 2014, when Russian annexed the Crimean Peninsula in a disputed referendum and was accused by tr />he U.S. and its allies of funding an eastern cross-border insurgency there. On Tuesday, four Russian Su-30SM and two Su-24M fighter jets attached to the Black Sea Fleet "carried out training bombing attacks on the location of the conditional enemy" in at the Opuk training ground in Crimea's Mount Konchekskaya.
The U.S. also left the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty last year after accusing Russia of developing a banned mid-range missile. The move has paved the way for both countries to deploy mid-range missiles not seen in Europe for decades.
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