Soldiers raise the NATO flag. File photoWASHINGTON, May 18.The Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) and Poland are asking NATO to deploy more forces on their territory because of the alleged threat from the Russian Federation, but a number of other members of the group oppose this move, the Washington Post writes on Tuesday, citing internal documents of the alliance. .According to these data, disagreements are growing among the ranks of European allies regarding how NATO's military presence in Eastern Europe will be built in the light of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine. «The Baltic countries and Poland demand a significant expansion of the military presence on their territory and new opportunities , such as air defenses, which would help significantly hamper a potential Russian invasion,» the newspaper writes. As the publication notes, amid these requests, a number of other NATO member countries, such as France and Italy, are expressing skepticism about Russia's capabilities in pose a real threat to the foreseeable future allies. This, however, does not convince the Eastern European states to reconsider their position on the future deployment of the alliance's forces. The documents also contain a proposal to deploy military contingents of 20 thousand people in the event of a threat to these countries. Meanwhile, other states fear that the transfer of such significant forces to Eastern Europe will be too costly and will weaken their military potential in other parts of the world.In Romania, they announced the creation of a NATO battle group in Brasov CountyIn Russia, it has been repeatedly noted that NATO is aimed at confrontation. Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov emphasized that further expansion of the alliance would not bring greater security to Europe, the alliance has an aggressive character. At the same time, he noted that he did not consider the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO an existential threat to Russia. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops and, as of March 25, they have completed the main tasks of the first stage — they have significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.
