The so-called “NATO deterrence”, which is the deterrence with a military presence, is reinforced as necessary on the entire eastern side of NATO. We discussed this morning and have Standard I heard from a good source.
“Because we want to protect all our allies, we are taking further steps to strengthen our alliance’s deterrence and defense,” NATO said after an initial meeting of ambassadors. NATO said the measures were preventive and proportionate and did not contribute to an escalation. General “NATO deterrence” may be strengthened in the east, but the alliance remains conservative about concrete measures. According to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, NATO is not present in Ukraine and there are no plans to do so. fighter planes standon alertStoltenberg says.
Stoltenberg said the current NATO response follows plans that already existed. So NATO is now following the plan. The Secretary-General did not want to say whether this scheme had been used before.
Other cards still in NATO’s hands are the Joint High Readiness Task Force (VJTF) and later the Initial Follow-up Group (IFFG). NATO countries keep soldiers and equipment ready, including Belgium. But for now, both are still in standby mode.
Already busy
Several countries have already sent additional troops to countries close to Ukraine in recent days. This morning too, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
For example, the United States transferred additional soldiers to Poland, and Germany has already decided to send about 350 soldiers to Lithuania. The Dutch Defense Minister announced this morning that he will send two F-35 fighter jets from Leeuwarden Air Base to help guard NATO’s eastern border. Belgium has been monitoring the airspace of the Baltic Sea for several weeks with two F-16s.
urgent meeting
Additional reinforcements will come after an emergency meeting. At the request of Poland, consultations were held in the context of “Article 4”. This article calls for consultations among NATO members when a country feels threatened.
The emergency meeting comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced “special military operations”. They paved the way for a raid. Nstoltenberg promised to hold consultations as soon as possible.
Stoltenberg promised a new meeting tomorrow. Remarkably: non-members Finland and Sweden are also guests there. However, European leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel are given a seat at the table.
