Source: Arab News:
LONDON: British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said Russian President Vladimir Putin poses a “real and present danger” to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Thursday and said NATO is getting ready to repel any possible aggression.
Fallon, whose remarks were published as Britain said it had scrambled jets to see off Russian Bear bombers, said Putin could launch a campaign of undercover tactics to try to destabilize the three former Soviet republics, now on NATO’s eastern flank.
Categories: Europe, Europe and Australia, European Union
Oh my God. If it is true should be stopped.
Brother Zubair: We have to acknowledge that it was ‘The West’ who ‘snatched’ the Baltic states first of all. NATO expanded Eastward, EU expanded Eastward. No wonder Putin started to react. All sides should have been more diplomatic and realistic.
Rafiq A. Tschannen; How exactly did ‘The West’ snatch the Baltic nations? They declared their independence after the fall of the USSR (they were independent from the end of WWI until WWII and forceably became Soviet vassals afterwards much as they were by the Czars before WWI) and then quickly requested NATO membership out of fear and loathing of the Russians. Remember, the Soviets deported 275,000 Balts out their countries eastward to Siberia(75,000 going to the gulag forced labor camps alone)and replaced them with ethnic Russians. Not unlike the Poles and the the Finns, the Balts have good reason to fear Russia, Putin and his cabal. If you don’t believe me, ask the ethnic Balts, not the ethnic Russians placed there by the USSR and left there after the fall. It was to the Balts humanitarian credit that they didn’t expel the Russians back to ‘The Rodina’, however that may have been a bad move as Putin can use their presence as an excuse to invade under his claim to protect all ethnic Russians wherever they may live if he feels they may be abused or marginalized.
By the way, have you noticed that the ‘Neutral’ nations of Finland and Sweden have engaged their militaries for mutual protection with NATO against the Russian threat? ‘The West’ didn’t force them to do that…
Robert Adams. In politics also, things are not ‘either black or white’. It is somewhere in-between. What you are stating is correct. Still, when NATO and EU expanded Eastwards they should have taken into consideration the sensibilities of Russia also.
Rafiq A. Tschannen; What sensibilities are you referring to? Russia’s notably intense xenophobia? Putin’s (and his cabal’s) megalomania and desire to return to the old Czarist days of empire? Nobody wants to attack Russia (despite all the laughable articles posted on Pravda et al). If anything, Europe wants to do business with Russia (despite the remarkable Russian kleptocracy). So does the USA. You are a European (albeit a cozy Swiss). Do you think Europe wants war with Russia?
Look at all the former ‘Warsaw Pact’ nations that fled to NATO and the EU when given the chance. Don’t you think they know something about what it was like being under the boot of the Red Army and within the iron grip of the Soviet Politburo and their cronies? Can you blame them for seeking protection from that? I don’t…
The USSR may be gone in name, but it still lives as the Russian Federation. The KGB is now the FSB, but it’s all the same. And the eastern European nations know that and justifiably fears them.