As part of the exercise Defender Europe 2021, in which the armed forces of NATO take part, the scenario of an armed confrontation with Russia is being worked out, Kommersant reports. Oleksiy Arestovich, the speaker of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group, said this.
According to him, open sources indicate that the main focus of the exercises is located in the waters in the region of the Balkan and Crimean peninsulas. “Large-scale NATO exercises, which are called Defender Europe 2021, have begun … Their meaning is this: in the water area from the Baltic to the Black Seas, a war with Russia, the topic of confrontation with Russia, is being worked out – well, let’s put it bluntly,” Arestovich said in an interview.
He also commented on the fact that Russian military exercises and NATO manoeuvres overlapped in time.
The Russians reacting to this as a threat by transferring additional troops – both within the framework of the West 2021 exercises and in order to stop the possible deployment of NATO forces. Because they are practising what they would have done “during the war” if NATO wanted to attack them.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would take “additional measures” if Nato were to make such a move, reported by BBC .
