2016-02-11 11:00

NATO Stirs Russian Anger by Bolstering Eastern Europe‘s Defenses

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg leaves the room after a news conference during a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium February 10, 2016.  REUTERS / Yves Herman
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg leaves the room after a news conference during a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium February 10, 2016. REUTERS / Yves Herman
NATO approved new reinforcements for eastern Europe and considered dispatching surveillance jets to the Middle East, reawakening Russia‘s fears of encirclement by hostile powers.

The U.S.-led alliance announced stepped-up troop rotations on its eastern flanks and more naval patrols in the Baltic Sea, and neared an agreement to send AWACS radar jets to back up the coalition fighting the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The decisions on two fronts acknowledged that after unsettling eastern Europe by dismembering Ukraine in 2014, Russia has gone on to destabilize the alliance‘s southeastern borders with its military campaign to save Bashar al-Assad‘s regime in Syria.

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