Opinion: NATO exercises increase risk of military incidents
The North Atlantic Alliance constantly conducts military manoeuvres near the borders of the Union State. Today, this is the Nordic Response in the Scandinavian region, part of the large-scale and time-consuming military exercises Steadfast Defender 2024. Military analyst Igor Chibisov explains what NATO’s strategic goals and objectives are.
“The exercises are demonstrative and provocative in nature. Any manoeuvres, especially in geographical proximity or on the line of contact, increase the risk of military incidents. Working out a multi-level operation is preparation for waging a full-scale war, not for repelling aggression. Finland's entry into the alliance has gained special significance for the United States. Key Russian cities from the point of view of danger – St. Petersburg, Murmansk, the main base of the Northern Fleet, Severomorsk, the centre of Russian nuclear shipbuilding and the main ship repair base, Severodvinsk, and other critically important facilities that, if desired, can be hit by medium-range missiles – are in the direct hit zone. That is, in addition to the possibility to get closer to Russian Arctic bases, this is a potential opportunity for offensive operations in the north-west of the Russian Federation, over a wide section of a potential front. A situation where it is possible to shell Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg (especially from Swedish Gotland and the Finnish Aland Islands) and to block these cities, as well as the entire Baltic coast of Russia, including the Gulf of Finland, which the British dreamed of back in the 18th century. Of course, these specific exercises cannot escalate into something more now, but given the unhealthy military and political situation in the world, we must be ready for anything,” the expert states.
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The Warsaw Pact Organisation (WPO), which united the world's socialist camp, has been defunct for more than thirty years, and NATO existed to counterbalance it. The 2023 Vilnius summit of the alliance showed the immutability of its objectives: readiness to resist the processes of creating a multipolar world by all means, including military. Once again, the process of confrontation of the geopolitical space was launched. For seventy years, NATO has been the most powerful military-political bloc in the world and a tool for maintaining US dominance. The Military Alliance AUKUS (USA, UK and Australia) was created by the Anglo-Saxon countries to contain the People's Republic of China and North Korea in the Indo-Pacific region.
