Nato holds massive war games as tensions with Russia simmer
Aims to simulate 30-nation military organisation’s response to attack on any of its members Russia backs Belarus’ Lukashenko
Aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth, May 28: As tensions with Russia simmer, thousands of Nato troops, several warships and dozens of aircraft are taking part in military exercises stretching across the Atlantic, through Europe and into the Black Sea region.
The war games, dubbed Steadfast Defender 21, are aimed at simulating the 30nation military organisation’s response to an attack on any one of its members. It will test Nato’s ability to deploy troops from America and keep supply lines open.
Already in recent years, the United States and its allies have deployed troops and equipment in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to try to reassure those members neighboring Russia that their partners will ride to the rescue should they come under attack.
Russia’s decision last month to send thousands of troops to the border area with Ukraine has raised concern at the military alliance, which launched one of its biggest ever defense spending initiatives after Russian troops annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in
2014.
Top Nato brass insist that the military exercises, involving some 9,000 troops from 20 nations, are not aimed at Russia specifically, but they focus on the Black Sea region, where Russia stands accused of blocking the free navigation of ships.
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the exercises send an important message to any potential adversary: “NATO is ready.”
“Nato is there to defend all our allies, and this exercise sends a message about our ability to transport a large number of troops, equipment across the Atlantic, across Europe and also to project maritime power,”
Stoltenberg told The Associated Press aboard a British aircraft carrier off the coast of Portugal.
The ship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, is the pride of the British Navy. It’s making its maiden voyage and carrying 18 F-35 jets: the first ever deployment of so many of the 5th generation planes aboard an aircraft carrier.
The ship’s presence, part of a 6-7 month deployment that will take it south past India, through Southeast Asia to the Philippines Sea, is aimed in part at restoring Britain’s tarnished image as a major global power since it left the European Union.
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Moscow, May 28: Russia on Friday threw its weight behind Belarus’s increasingly isolated regime, slamming a European overflight ban as President Vladimir Putin prepared host strongman Alexander Lukashenko.
The meeting is an important show of support for the authoritarian Belarusian leader who is facing a global outcry after he forced a Ryanair jet to land in Minsk last Sunday and arrested an opposition activist onboard.
The European Union
to
in response urged carriers based in the bloc to divert flights from Belarusian airspace and promised a fresh wave of sanctions against Lukashenko and regime officials.
The overflight ban has led to several cancellations of flights between Russia and Europe, after Russian authorities rejected flight plans that would have skipped Belarusian airspace.
Air France for the second time this week had to cancel a flight from Paris to Moscow on Friday, after Austrian Airlines did the same for a Vienna-to-Moscow flight on Thursday.
Russia insists the cancellations are purely “technical”, but they have raised concerns that Russia could be systematically refusing to let European airlines land if they avoid Belarus.
With the PutinLukashenko talks due later Friday in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, Moscow hit out at the flight ban as politically motivated and dangerous.
What the West has done... for political reasons is completely irresponsible and endangers the safety of passengers,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“It is time for Brussels to learn how to take effective measures to protect citizens against real, not imaginary, threats,” she said.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc was monitoring whether this was a broader policy from Russia, but the Kremlin insisted the disruptions were in no way political.