New divisions to beef up Russia’s defense against NATO in Baltics: opinion

While NATO is currently deploying military hardware and troops to the Baltic states, there is no risk of a military confrontation, Russian military expert Igor Korotchenko has told EADaily.

“Russia’s armed forces are strong enough and have the necessary capacity,” he said.

However, the expert said, “the fact of NATO’s military build-up in the Baltics, development of various scenarios of drills implying real military actions against Russia, deployment of NATO tactical aircrafts that among others can carry nuclear bombs, as well as establishment of NATO command and staff infrastructures in the Baltics is potentially dangerous for us.”

Korotchenko says Russia needs to counteract and “upgrade its defense capacity, deploying more troops close to areas of NATO’s military built-up.”

As EADaily reported earlier, NATO is deploying military hardware and troops to Baltic States. During the last two days, for instance, NATO’s official representation in Estonia reported several big operations. It was reported on March 19 that 300 tanks and armored vehicles were supplied from UK to Estonia. On March 20, NATO office in Baltics reported deployment of French military hardware to Estonia.

In 2015, U.S. launched Resolute Support operation to increase its presence in Europe. U.S. troops have been deployed also to all Baltic States. The largest military group from U.S. is in Latvia now – about 50 armored vehicles and 400 troops.