PM to highlight security threats at Nato summit

BORIS JOHNSON will tell Nato leaders coronavirus recovery plans must be underpinned by “peace and stability” in the wake of cyber attacks.

After hosting the G7 in Cornwall, the Prime Minister will travel to Brussels today for a summit of the Western alliance. He is expected to use the meeting to highlight the way the Covid crisis was exacerbated by security threats – including cyber attacks on the healthcare systems of some alliance members.

He will also back the modernisation programme instituted by Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, saying the alliance must be prepared to face down the challenges of the future.

“Nato is not just important to the UK’S security, it is our security,” Mr Johnson said in a statement ahead of the summit. “Nato owes it to the billion people we keep safe every day to continually adapt and evolve … and face down emerging threats. As we recover from the global devastation wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic we need to do so with secure foundations.”

As leaders prepared to travel to Brussels, Mr Stoltenberg said there is a “pattern of Russian behaviour” from cyber attacks through to the willingness to use military force against neighbours. “We have to take that very seriously,” he told Times Radio.