BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO will more than sevenfold increase its troop numbers on high alert to over 300,000 as the allies prepare to adopt a new strategy to identify Russia as a direct threat, the alliance secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Monday. After four months of war in Ukraine.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February sparked a dramatic geopolitical shift in the West, prompting once-neutral countries like Finland and Sweden to apply to join NATO and secure Ukraine’s official candidate status to join the European Union. it did.
“Russia has moved away from the partnership and dialogue that NATO has been trying to establish with its government for many years,” the secretary-general said in Brussels ahead of the week-long NATO summit in Madrid. said.
“They chose confrontation instead of dialogue. We regret that, but of course we need to respond to this reality,” Stoltenberg told reporters.
The June 28-30 NATO summit comes at a critical time for the alliance, after failures in Afghanistan and a period of disagreement during the tenure of former US President Donald Trump, who threatened to pull Washington out of the alliance.
Stoltenberg said that in the future, NATO will have “more than 300,000” troops on high alert, compared to the 40,000 troops currently forming the alliance’s rapid reaction force, the NATO Response Force (NRF).
source: Noticias
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