At a time when Ukraine is pressing its Western allies to provide it with arms, ammunition and financial support after the American budget impasse, NATO’s announcements constitute a message of support for Ukraine clearly intended for the Kremlin. A logic of deterrence which is reminiscent of the clashes of the Cold War.
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With our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet
With 90,000 men, the “unwavering defender” exercise is a record in terms of the number of soldiers deployed, according to the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of NATO countries. These major maneuvers will last several months and involve 1,100 combat vehicles, 80 planes and 50 ships. Since 1988, in the midst of the Cold War, no allied exercise had reached a comparable scale.
Moreover, this is very precisely what it is about, even if the name of Russia is not expressly mentioned since the unwavering defender exercise will concern the entire continent with also the sending of American and Canadian soldiers to face “ to an enemy of comparable size “.
NATO member countries wanted the Alliance not to be on the front line in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine so as not to give rise to the Kremlin’s confrontational rhetoric. As such, it is the United States which chairs the Ramstein group on armaments and it is France which launched the coalition on artillery this Thursday. But NATO nonetheless seeks to show that it has the capabilities and the will to face a large-scale offensive.