The US newspaper The Washington Post pointed out that the Baltic states and Poland have called on NATO to deploy more forces on their territory due to claims of a Russian “threat”, while other countries are questioning the claims of this threat, which increases the split within the alliance. .

According to the publication, disagreements are growing among European allies, members of NATO, over the deployment of new forces in Eastern Europe and how to build up NATO’s military presence in Eastern Europe against the backdrop of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. The newspaper notes that the coalition countries assess the possible consequences of the special operation in Ukraine differently. The Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) and Poland demand a significant expansion of the presence of the military alliance on their territory and the provision of modern weapons and air defense systems. Meanwhile, other members of the alliance, including Italy and France, doubt that Russia “will pose a threat to NATO territory in the near future.”

According to a joint secret proposal by the Baltic States, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia obtained by The Washington Post, which indicated that “Russia can quickly mobilize military forces against NATO’s eastern borders and confront the alliance with a short war, and this is a reality”, offering “the appointment and deployment of teams of 20,000 people each, taking into account the threat. However, at the same time, the newspaper notes, other countries fear that the transfer of such important forces to Eastern Europe will be very costly and weaken their military potential in other parts of the world.

The newspaper stressed that many NATO countries consider “deploying large NATO forces in Eastern Europe on a permanent basis as costly and inconvenient.” They also fear that NATO “will turn its back on other threats it has focused on in recent years, including terrorism and illegal migration across the Mediterranean. These issues are of greatest concern to countries such as Spain and Italy, which are still far from all” .Far from Russia, but close to North Africa.