Ukraine and Russia: NATO puts its troops on “alert status” and sends ships and planes to Eastern Europe | International

NATO announced on Monday that its allies are putting their forces on “alert status” and sending additional warships and warplanes to eastern Europe to reinforce the eastern flank. The announcement comes in a perhaps decisive week given the escalation of tension between the West and Moscow due to the accumulation of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, and while Washington debates the next steps with its European partners. Among Western countries, the United States and the United Kingdom offer the greatest signs of concern about possible action by Moscow in Kiev in the short term.

“I am pleased that the allies are contributing additional forces to NATO,” said the secretary general of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, through a statement. “NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies, including strengthening the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration in our security environment, including by strengthening our collective defense.”

Stoltenberg added that the Alliance is also considering increasing its presence in Southeast Europe (in countries such as Bulgaria and Romania) through battalions similar to those already operating in the Baltic countries and Poland. “We will evaluate and make the decision when the time is right,” he explained this Monday in an appearance in which he highlighted that “for the first time in decades” Washington has placed “under NATO command” an air-naval group made up of several ships and aircraft carriers.

While diplomatic efforts continue to avoid a warlike disaster at the gates of the EU, several NATO members have announced “current or future” deployments in recent days, according to the statement issued by the Alliance. Among them is Spain, which “is sending ships to join NATO naval forces and is considering sending combat aircraft to Bulgaria,” the note states.

The United States seems to go a step further than the rest of the allies, at least, in terms of the details that have been released. The Joe Biden Administration is considering sending thousands of troops, warships and planes to Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries. Senior Pentagon officials presented a range of possibilities to the president this weekend at a meeting at Camp David, government sources explained to different local media.

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Options include the deployment of between 1,000 and 5,000 soldiers on NATO’s eastern flank (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), according to numbers advanced by The New York Times, but the reinforcement of the military presence in Ukraine is not currently on the table, to the despair of the Kiev government. This afternoon, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby reported that up to 8,500 soldiers are on “high alert” for possible deployment. Biden plans to make the decision this week, but different units have already begun preparing for a possible transfer, either from bases located in the United States or from other European locations.

These plans emerged at the same time that Washington authorized all non-essential personnel to leave Ukraine and recommended that all US citizens leave the country, a measure also adopted by the United Kingdom that, on the one hand, increases the feeling of a increasingly imminent military conflict and, on the other hand, shows the asymmetry with the European Union, which has not seen this step as necessary. To reinforce unity and coordination, Biden plans to meet with European leaders (those of the EU and NATO, as well as the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Poland) this Monday afternoon by videoconference.

The suspicion that Russia is already preparing specific actions was also emphasized from the United Kingdom. Boris Johnson has warned the government of Vladimir Putin that a hypothetical invasion of Ukraine would be “a disastrous step” and that, “from a Russian perspective, it would be something painful, violent and bloody,” reports Rafael de Miguel from London. The British prime minister has taken the Kremlin’s war intentions for granted, assuring that “information from the intelligence services is very clear, in the sense that there are sixty Russian battalions on the border with Ukraine, and the plan to launch a blitzkrieg to take Kiev is something anyone can see.”

During a scheduled visit to a hospital, Johnson has addressed the British media to affirm that “the picture is quite bleak”, and that he had undertaken his own round of telephone contacts with other political leaders to try to avoid an escalation of the war. “I know the Ukrainian people well, I have been there several times,” said Johnson, convinced that the population will respond to a possible attack. “The United Kingdom is leading the proposal for a package of economic sanctions [contra Rusia], and it will help strengthen the resistance of our Ukrainian friends with the defensive weapons that we are supplying them, while making it clear that we fully support the people of Ukraine, “said the British Prime Minister.

On a diplomatic level, the US government plans to respond this week in writing to the latest proposals put forward by the Kremlin at last Friday’s meeting. The United States has also tried to dispel any doubts after the confusion that Biden created last Wednesday, by marking the difference between a serious offensive or a “minor” Russian intervention in Ukraine. “If a single additional Russian force enters Ukraine aggressively, there will be a swift, severe and united response from the United States and Europe,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview with CNN. .

In the military, on the part of Spain, the frigate Blas de Lezo and the maritime action vessel Meteor They set sail last week for the Black Sea. In addition, Spain plans to send four Eurofighter fighters to Bulgaria in February. Despite the fact that the deployment was foreseen in the agreement of the Council of Ministers on December 21, which approved the contribution of the Spanish Armed Forces to NATO, UN and European Union missions during 2022, the Ukraine crisis has made it more important.

The Spanish contribution is joined by Denmark, which plans to send a frigate to the Baltic Sea and is going to deploy four F-16 fighters in Lithuania, in support of the air policing mission that NATO carries out on a daily basis in that area, according to the statement released on Monday. “France”, the note continues, “has expressed its willingness to send troops to Romania under the command of NATO”. And the Netherlands has also posted two F-35 fighter jets to Bulgaria, as well as contributing a ship and ground units to the NATO Response Force.

“The United States has also made it clear that it is considering increasing its military presence in the eastern part of the Alliance,” the text adds.

From the other side, Russia has replied this Monday through the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, attributing to the West the responsibility for the increase in voltage in the crisis. “The escalation of tension is due to the informative actions […] undertaken by the United States and NATO”, he explained at a press conference in which he criticized the “information hysteria”.

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