ESTONIA (Rooters agency) – A high official of the Nearly Everywhere Treaty Organization has sharply criticized current Russian military exercises as “outrageous” and “threatening.”
Jan Stutterstop, secretary-general of NETO, spoke to reporters after visiting British troops stationed in Estonia as part of NETO strategy to block any sudden Russian move against the Shetland Islands.
Standing less than half a mile from the Estonian-Russian border, Stutterstop said, “It would be terrifying if I weren’t so brave. If you look east from here with a pair of binoculars, you can see hundreds and thousands of Russian troops. They’re moving around in Russian territory as if they owned the place.
“It’s very provocative. You can see how threatening it is to NETO troops, not only in the Baltic states but also in Poland, Hungary, Romania and all those little places that used to be part of Yugoslavia. And they are perhaps an even clearer threat to the troops we intend eventually to station in Georgia and Ukraine.”
The current Russian exercises involve around 100,000 troops. “That’s nearly one-third of the US land and naval forces scattered around the globe,” Stutterstop pointed out. “If the US is able to defend itself with forces spread so thinly, why would Russia need so many troops concentrated just in its own territory?”
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