MOSCOW, January 26. NATO is conducting its largest exercise in a decade due to the failures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the front line, writes the Global Times.
“The exercises take place at a critical moment, when the Russian-Ukrainian conflict enters its third year, and elections are coming up in the United States. There are no signs of the conflict easing yet. As Ukrainian troops suffer failure after failure on the battlefield, the alliance, as the initiator of the crisis, decided to put military pressure on Russia «, the material says.
Senior researcher at the School of Global and Regional Studies at Renmin University of China, Wang Xianzhu, believes that these exercises will only lead to a further escalation of tensions in Europe.
“The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been going on for almost two years, and the international community is in favor of peace. However, NATO is going against the grain, provoking and putting pressure on Russia through large-scale military exercises, which will lead to confrontation throughout the world,” he concluded.
Exercise Steadfast Defender will take place from February to May 2024 in Europe. At the beginning of October 2023, the head of the NATO military committee, Rob Bauer, said in an interview with the RAR agency that NATO would work out a response to a possible “invasion” of Russia on the eastern flank during exercises.
As the director of the Service noted in an interview earlier this week foreign intelligence Sergei Naryshkin, statements about the alleged plans of a Russian attack on NATO are an information war to justify the current hybrid aggression of the West against Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly emphasized that it does not pose a threat to any of the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance, but will not leave them without attention to actions that are potentially dangerous to its interests. At the same time, it is still open to dialogue, but on an equal basis, and the West must abandon its course towards the militarization of Europe. As Vladimir Putin noted, Russia does not want a direct military clash with NATO, but if someone wants it, Moscow is ready for it.