During the Russian-Belarusian exercises “West-2017” troops of NATO will strengthen its presence in Eastern countries of the Alliance. This was stated by commander of the US army in Europe Ben Hodges, reports the TV channel “112 Ukraine” with reference to “5 channel”.
He did not rule out the possibility of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States, but promised that NATO will be ready to answer, the report said.
According to Ben Hodges, Russia cannot be trusted, because there are many examples of how Moscow does not comply with any of the agreements and constantly breaks promises.
“When Russia seized the Crimea is occurred against the backdrop of military exercises. When the Russians entered Georgia – was also learning. And I would not rule out such developments in connection with these teachings. But NATO are professionals, we all work hard to have a high level of readiness in time like these exercises,” said commander of the US army in Europe.
Recall exercises “West-2017” of Russia and Belarus scheduled for September of this year. The training will be on the territory of Belarus. They will join more than 100 thousand soldiers. It will be the largest Russian military exercises since 2013. But the American military are going to conduct their exercises in Sweden, Poland and Ukraine – at a time when there will be Russian “Zapad-2017”.
