“We are further strengthening our alliance with better and modernized plans,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The strategy aims to be prepared for simultaneous attacks by Russia in the Baltic States and the Black Sea region. The first comprehensive NATO plan of this kind since the end of the Cold War covers scenarios ranging from conventional military attacks and hybrid warfare to cyber attacks and disinformation offensives.
The NATO representatives emphasized that they did not assume that a Russian attack was imminent. But the relationship between Russia and NATO has recently deteriorated massively.
Russia had threatened NATO with consequences if the Western military alliance took further steps to accept Ukraine. At the same time, however, the government in Moscow rejected all accusations that it was behaving aggressively and, for its part, accused NATO of destabilizing Europe with its strategic preparations. The military alliance had expelled eight Russian NATO employees on charges of espionage, whereupon Russia severed all formal relations.
