DISINFO: NATO uses military exercises to deliver arms to Ukraine
SUMMARY
NATO is using a series of military exercises in Eastern Europe, such as "Sea Breeze" and "Defender Europe 2021" to transfer secretly weapons to Ukraine which could end up being used in Donbas.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation narrative about NATO and its military exercises. It claims that NATO supplies Ukraine with weapons secretly and in circumvention of international law. Such messages also imply that NATO-Ukraine joint war games threaten Russia's security and serve as a justification of its military build-up along Ukraine’s border.
NATO is a defensive alliance, whose purpose is to protect its member states. During the Warsaw summit in July 2016, NATO has made it clear that: "The Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia". The Brussels Summit Declaration from 2018 concludes that “Russia’s aggressive actions, including the threat and use of force to attain political goals, challenge the Alliance and are undermining Euro-Atlantic security and the rules-based international order.”
The Alliance prepared a special defence plan for the Baltic states and Poland at their request after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. The plan was put into action in summer 2020. Earlier, in 2017, the Alliance deployed NATO Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) forces in the Baltic states and Poland. In Lithuania (as well as in Latvia, Estonia, Poland) eFP is assessed as “the most important of the security assurance”. The Baltic states see membership in NATO as a guarantee of their military security.
The Alliance announces its military exercises well in advance and they are subject to international observation. NATO strongly supports efforts to build confidence and transparency in military activities and exercises. Both Sea Breeze and Defender Europe 2021 military exercises are defensive in nature and are organised for NATO Allies and partners to strengthen and fortify the level of interoperability.
It should also be noted that Ukraine as a sovereign and independent state has every right to join any military or political alliances it wants and seal deals with whomever it wants. Before Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and its further aggression in Donbas in 2014, all polls were showing that much less than half the population were in favour of Ukraine’s membership of NATO, while 62 per cent of Ukrainians approve of it now. Ukraine enshrined its future membership of NATO and the European Union in its Constitution in 2019.
Unlike the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who receive foreign military and technical aid transparently, the Kremlin-backed separatists in Donbas get Russian weapons and other military equipment in a clandestine manner. Russia denies the fact that it supplies them with weaponry, but there is enough evidence of Russian illegal military supplies to its proxies in Donbas.
Read similar cases in our database alleging that “Defender Europe 2021” exercises are destroying European security; or that the NATO Sea Shield 2021 creates conditions for a real destabilisation of the Black sea region and that NATO needs Georgia as a military platform for a conflict potential with Russia; or that NATO’s actions are openly anti-Russian.
Additionally, see more similar narratives about NATO’s alleged presence in Donbas and the West’s attempts to provoke Ukraine into war with Russia.