NATO members gather in Wales with Russia at the top of the agenda
Russia faced harsh criticism at the start of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Wales today with the 28 member state alliance reevaluating its security role in Europe amid the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance 鈥淩ussian involvement in destabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine鈥� even after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a seven-point peace plan. Russia maintains it has not armed rebels in eastern Ukraine or contributed to the conflict there.
Early reports from the summit suggest NATO leaders are set to agree to create "rapid reaction" forces that could be deployed in less than two days to regional crisis spots. Countries close to Russia, especially Poland, have called for NATO to permanently station troops on their territory, but Reuters reports this is unlikely to happen because the alliance made with Russia.
As the Monitor reported, the creation of rapid response forces would thrust the United States into the center of any future conflict.
Though these measures appear largely symbolic, they would have the impact of putting substantial numbers of US troops on the front line between NATO and Russia. Should any kind of unrest break out, US troops would be first in harm's way. Experts say that's needed to calm the heightened anxieties among Russia-adjacent alliance members over Moscow's heavy-handed methods of "protecting" Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine.
鈥�
The Kremlin's likely answer will be to make sweeping revisions to the country's official military policy, to clearly identify NATO as an adversary. That would likely be followed by redeployments of troops and air defenses from Russia's interior closer to Europe. It might also station greater numbers of 聽and other offensive weaponry in its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.
As the BBC鈥檚 Jonathan Marcus reports, the summit is meant to 鈥渞eassure worried Nato members and to send clear signals to Moscow about Nato鈥檚 resolve.鈥�
Russia is, firstly, overturning the post-Cold War security order in Europe set out in the Nato-Russia Founding Act of 1997.
This document, signed in Paris by Nato leaders and then-President Boris Yeltsin, set out to build 鈥渁 lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic Area.鈥�
It contained an explicit requirement to respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all states. Nato鈥檚 view is that Russia's behaviour in Ukraine is a blatant breach of the principles contained in the Founding Act.
Ukraine鈥檚 recent ambitions to join NATO caused Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov聽to warn before the summit that both NATO and the US should stay out of the current situation. Mr. Lavrov said its non-aligned member status was 鈥渁聽blatant attempt to聽derail all efforts aimed at聽initiating a聽dialogue on聽ensuring national reconciliation.鈥�
Twelve countries are expected to join Ukraine and the US in a military exercise later this month in western Ukraine.
The ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine has taken a heavy toll with the United Nations reporting close to 2,600 deaths with more than .
The summit comes a day after France decided to suspend its delivery of warships to Russia with French President Francois Hollande鈥檚 office saying actions by Russia have hurt 鈥渢he foundations of security in Europe.鈥�
Ukrainian and Russian representatives will meet in Minsk, Belarus tomorrow to continue talks aimed at ending fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Moscow rebels that began in April.
