Russia to respond to NATO exercises with missile tests

Russia plans to test missiles off Norway this week in an area where NATO is carrying out its biggest military exercises since the end of the Cold War, a move seen as an escalation of tensions in the Far North.

“We were notified last week about the planned Russian missile tests outside the coast here,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tells reporters in western Norway where the Trident Juncture 18 exercises are taking place.

The maneuvers are aimed at training the Atlantic Alliance to defend a member state after an aggression.

Mobilizing some 50,000 troops, 65 ships, and 250 aircraft from 31 countries several hundred kilometers (miles) from Norway’s border with Russia in the Arctic, the exercises have angered Moscow, which had vowed to “retaliate.”

“Despite the pretty awkward attempts by representatives of the Alliance and its member states to present this military activity as defensive, it is obvious that this show of force is clearly of an anti-Russian nature,” the Russian foreign ministry says.

The Russian military announced last week it was deploying four vessels in the North Atlantic for exercises of its own.

“Russia has significant naval forces in this area,” Stoltenberg says. “I expect Russia to behave in a professional way.”

— AFP