Britain sends tanks, drones, troops to Estonia to deter Russia

Britain announced Wednesday it will send fighter jets to Romania next year.

“We have seen a significant military buildup in Russian Federation over many years and defense spending has tripled since the year 2000 in real terms”, he said.

Eight ships from Russia’s northern fleet, including the Admiral Kuznetsov and the Peter the Great, a missile-carrying battle cruiser, passed through the English Channel en route to Syria last week.

“Tomorrow at our meeting, the nations which are responsible for leading the four different battalions – Canada, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States – will set out their plans for the battalions they will lead”, Stoltenberg said.

Alexander Grushko, Russia’s envoy to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, said the move of the allied forces would disrupt the peace stability of the region and Russia considered the move as military and political containment against them.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced a “battle-ready battalion task force” of roughly 900 soldiers that would be sent to eastern Poland as part of this commitment. “The alliance is concentrating its forces on limiting a non-existent threat from the East”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in the summer.

But the alliance is still struggling to carry over a similar strategy in the Black Sea region where there is Russian military presence.

Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey are also expected to come forward with a plan to increase naval and air patrols in the area by the beginning of 2017. Stoltenberg hopes to convene another NATO-Russia Council – the forum bringing together Grushko, Russia’s top diplomat to the alliance, and NATO envoys – in the next few weeks, diplomats say. “This is a credible deterrence, not to provoke a conflict but to prevent conflict”.

According to NATO, the missiles in Kaliningrad may hit Poland and the Baltic countries, although the organisation did not comment on whether the Kremlin has deployed nuclear heads in its enclave.

In recent weeks alone, Russian Federation has moved battleships toward the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, shifted nuclear-capable missile-launchers into its Kaliningrad enclave neighboring Poland and continued flying bombers down the western European coast.

“NATO and primarily the United States are actively reclaiming the aquatorium of the Black Sea with their multifunctional combat platforms having a serious offensive and anti-missile potential”, while “intimidating the public with movements of Russian ships in the global waters”, said Grushko.

NATO’s tensions with Russian Federation have been building since Crimea and the West’s decision to impose retaliatory sanctions. Stoltenberg also accused Moscow of bombing Syrian Aleppo and causing a humanitarian crisis in the city.