NATO will consider a longer-term military presence in Eastern European countries amid heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine, said Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, as the alliance’s forces conducted military exercises in the region on Feb. 8.
“We are considering more longer-term adjustments to our posture, our presence in the eastern part of the alliance. No final decision has been made on that, but there is a process now going on within NATO,” he told reporters in Brussels this week.
NATO defense ministers are expected to discuss reinforcements at their next meeting sometime next week. Western governments have urged Moscow to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s borders, especially if Russia wants to see fewer deployments in eastern NATO-allied states.
“If Russia really wants less NATO close to the borders, they get the opposite,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, referring to NATO’s response to deploy battlegroups on its eastern territory following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
The situation in Eastern Europe is “the most difficult one we’ve faced since 1989,” said Polish President Andrzej Duda in a conference this week.
![A serviceman carries his machine gun into a shelter in the territory controlled by pro-Russian militants at the front line with Ukrainian government forces in Slavyanoserbsk, Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine, on Jan. 25, 2022. (Alexei Alexandrov/AP Photo)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F01%2F26%2FUkraine_Russia_22025485012834-600x400.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
![Yuri, 12, trains with members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, close to Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 5, 2022. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F02%2F05%2FUkraine_Russia_Tensions_2022-2-5-600x404.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
Stoltenberg hailed the fresh U.S. deployment as “a powerful demonstration of American commitment to our alliance.”
“Other allies are also contributing more forces to NATO on land, in the air, and at sea,” he said. The UK has also committed a few hundred additional troops to Poland.
Some 15,000 Russian soldiers are currently stationed in Belarus, located north of Ukraine and east of Poland, according to Kusti Salm, the Estonian Ministry of Defence’s permanent secretary. Salm told Sky that the number could increase twofold, possibly warranting a “dramatic change” in NATO’s tactics.
On Feb. 8, Russia sailed warships toward the Black Sea, even as French President Emmanuel Macron met directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin for dialogue. That day, Macron also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“No one is naive,” Macron said in a news conference alongside Zelensky. “I don’t think we can settle this crisis with a few hours of discussion.” But the French leader said there were “specific, practical solutions that will allow us to move forward,” although he provided no details.
Earlier this week, there were signs that Russia could de-escalate the conflict following Macron’s meeting, but the Kremlin on Feb. 8 rejected that speculation.
Chief Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t confirm whether there were any tangible steps toward a de-escalation of the conflict. While Russia has denied it wants to invade Ukraine, it also has demanded that NATO can’t allow Ukraine to join, which Western officials have described as a nonstarter.
“I can’t comment on it, I do not quite understand what French colleagues were talking about,” Peskov told reporters on Feb. 8.