Nato warns Russia not to exploit pandemic

James Crisp, Nataliya Vasilyeva

Danielle Sheridan

NATO is ready to face down any threat from Russia despite the pandemic, the military alliance warned Moscow yesterday.

The outbreak has forced Nato to cancel some military exercises, including the Us-led “Defender-europe 20”.

Meanwhile, Russia, which is suspected of a campaign of disinformation about the virus, has been flexing its muscles in exercises close to the allies’ borders, including in UK waters.

Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary general, insisted that “operational readiness” was unimpaired and that the alliance’s ability to defend itself had not been weakened.

“Our primary objective is to ensure that this health crisis does not become a security crisis,” Mr Stoltenberg said at a news conference before today’s video meeting of foreign ministers from the 30-strong alliance.

The ministers will discuss their response to the pandemic, which has killed 30,000 people in Europe. They are expected to issue a joint statement warning Russia and other potential enemies that Nato is still a potent force.

“Our operational readiness is maintained, it is not undermined,” Mr Stoltenberg said. We continue to patrol the skies and to defend our borders and we continue our missions and operations. The threats and the challenges we’re faced with don’t disappear because of the Covid-19 crisis.”

Jets from Nato air forces have intercepted Russian warplanes several times in recent weeks and alliance naval vessels shadowed seven Russian warships loitering unusually in the North Sea for several days.

Russian forces had also carried out a snap military exercise close to Europe’s borders, Mr Stoltenberg said.

That operation, near St Petersburg, involved 82,000 servicemen and women, including the Russian air force, the strategic missile force as well as radiological, chemical and biological defence troops, engineers and medics.

Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the defence select committee, said it was imperative that the price for tackling the pandemic “should not include dropping our guard on adversaries and competitors who will not think twice about exploiting this global crisis for their own cause”.

“The Kremlin’s objectives of challenging Nato’s expansion, advancing its own regional influence on land and sea continues unabated,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

The Russian ministry of defence made no comment in response to the Nato warning when contacted by The Telegraph.