NATO military chair declares alliance is ready for direct confrontation with Russia

Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Rob Bauer, on Saturday threatened a direct confrontation with Russia, asserting that the alliance's military is demonstrating combat readiness.

In an interview with RTP, a Portuguese public broadcaster, Bauer said that NATO "is prepared for a direct confrontation with Russia". He also admitted that rearmament is the alliance’s top priority in order to confront the Russian Federation as it wages war in the neighbouring Ukraine, on Europe's eastern flank.  

'It is the Russians crossing our borders': NATO Mil Chair

NATO military chair also acknowledged that the alliance no longer struggles with a monopoly, and can take the military initiatives. During the NATO summit in Madrid last year, the Alliance formulated four additional multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia in an attempt to counter the Russian threat in EU and transatlantic region, Bauer noted. 

"This is an important signal for Russia," Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Rob Bauer told the Portuguese public broadcaster. "That we are prepared if they decide to go after NATO. This is a red line. If there is a red line, then it is the Russians crossing our borders," the Chair of the NATO Military Committee furthermore added. 

Bauer urged the NATO members to ramp up industrial production in order to meet the equipment, arms, and other military needs. He also expressed support for the "war economy in peacetime". Russia’s strategic objectives aren't just confined to Ukraine, and will go beyond, warned the NATO official, adding that Russia's President, Vladimir Putin aims to reclaim the former Soviet Union territories. Ahead of Russia launching an all-out invasion on Ukraine, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, at a meeting of the 30-nation military organisation's foreign ministers, had warned that war with Ukraine will have "devastating consequences" as Moscow had amassed large and unusual concentrations of the 41st army in Yelnya, a town 260 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border. Russia, this week, staunchly affirmed that the delivery of NATO battle tanks—M1 Abrams and German-made Leopard-2— implies a “direct and growing” involvement of the US and Europe in conflict. 

“There are constant statements from European capitals and Washington that the sending of various weapons systems to Ukraine, including tanks, in no way signifies the involvement of these countries or the alliance in hostilities in Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said at a state presser. 

“We categorically disagree with this and, in Moscow, everything the alliance and the capitals I mentioned are doing is seen as direct involvement in the conflict. We see that this is growing.”