DISINFO: NATO Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises are Western hybrid war against Russia
SUMMARY
NATO's upcoming Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises mark NATO's return to Cold War patterns.
An exercise of this scale - 90,000 personnel and involving 31 countries - marks NATO's final and irrevocable return to the Cold War, with military planning, resources, and infrastructure geared towards confrontation with Russia.
Preparation for these exercises takes place in an artificially heated atmosphere of military psychosis and irresponsible statements about a possible war with Russia. These exercises are another element of the hybrid war unleashed by the West against Russia.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about allegedly aggressive NATO.
NATO is a defensive alliance with primary aims to maintain peace and safeguard the independence, security, and territorial integrity of its members. NATO constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. NATO’s official policy is that “the Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia.”
NATO is launching its largest exercise since 1988 involving some 90,000 troops, rehearsing how U.S. troops could reinforce European allies in countries bordering Russia and on the alliance's eastern flank if a conflict were to flare up with a "near-peer" adversary. Steadfast Defender 2024 is a NATO maneuver that will be used to enter the response to a hypothetical aggression by the Russian Federation against a member country, activating Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. The exercise is part of the series of Steadfast Defender maneuvers and will take place from February 1 to March 15, 2024.. It is the largest NATO maneuver since the end of the Cold War.
As NATO gears up for the Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises, Russia has been engaged in an information campaign seeking to cast NATO's actions as provocative, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said. "The Russian information operation aimed at painting defensive NATO actions in response to real Russian aggression on NATO’s eastern flank as provocative seeks to deflect from recent aggressive Russian rhetoric and behaviour towards NATO," the ISW said.
Russia often accuses NATO of a series of threats and hostile actions. The pro-Kremlin disinformation myth of NATO “encircling Russia” has been used as a pretext for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Read the debunking of the top five Russian Myths about NATO here.
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