WASHINGTON DC (TASS): The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is considering deploying additional forces on its eastern flank on a permanent basis, in violation of previous agreements with Russia. This was confirmed on Wednesday by US Permanent Representative to NATO Julianne Smith.
“However, NATO is now in the process of in-depth reflection on the medium- and long-term presence of [its] forces on NATO territory on the eastern flank. We do not yet have all the answers [to the questions under consideration]. Of course, one solution could be the permanent deployment of [additional troops]. Or another option being explored could be continuous rotations [of forces],” the American diplomat said, speaking at an online seminar of the Atlantic Council. To the host’s remark that this sounded like evidence of the Alliance’s readiness to at least consider the idea of basing its additional forces on the eastern flank, Smith replied: “Yes, all options are being explored, absolutely.”
Meanwhile, such deployment of forces would be contrary to the Russia-NATO Founding Act, signed in 1997. “NATO reaffirms that, under the current and foreseeable security conditions, the alliance will carry out its collective defense and other tasks through ensuring the necessary interoperability, integration and enhancement capabilities, and not through the additional permanent deployment of significant combat forces,” the document said.
The American envoy argued that the responsibility for the violation of the act lies with Moscow. “<…> The consensus we have here at NATO is that Russia is clearly violating the Russia-NATO Founding Act,” Smith said. According to her, “there is absolutely no debate about this.”
As Smith clarified, NATO is now waiting for “concrete proposals” from its military leaders. The alliance will then decide “what the security situation requires,” the ambassador said.
According to her, the US and NATO “do not know, for example, how many troops Russia will keep in Belarus.” “We do not know the final outcome of what is happening in Ukraine. We hope that Russian troops will not remain there,” the permanent representative said.
“We will have to prepare a series of assessments regarding our alignment of forces and means, which will take weeks and months <…>,” Smith added. According to her information, at this stage, “decisions on the balance of forces and means in the longer term are still an open question.”
In addition, she said that at the upcoming NATO summit in Brussels on March 24 with the participation of US President Joe Biden, decisions will be made, including support for a “wider group of partners”, including countries such as Georgia and Moldova. Smith did not provide details.
United States said it did not consider sending Polish MiG-29s to Ukraine an acceptable solution: The issue of handing over Soviet-made Polish MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine is exclusively within the competence of Warsaw, but the United States does not consider such an option acceptable. This was stated on Wednesday by the US permanent representative to NATO, Julianne Smith.
“This is Poland’s sovereign decision. And we made it clear that this is something that Warsaw can decide for itself,” she said, speaking at an online seminar of the Atlantic Council.
“The United States did not feel that this particular solution was acceptable. We had so many questions that could not be easily answered regarding pilots, fuel, and logistics issues regarding how to ultimately move aircraft from Poland to Ukraine,” she explained.
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