NATO: Russia no immediate military threat to our allies
Published 2023-11-22

Russia does not pose an immediate military threat to NATO. This was said by the military alliance's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, on Tuesday. The background is statements by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi that Russia plans to destabilize the Balkans and invade the Baltics.

In the first days of the week, Stoltenberg visited the Western Balkans to meet the heads of government of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia.

The aim has been to strengthen ties to the countries in the region.

"No immediate military threat"
On Tuesday, Stoltenberg held a press conference in Skopje together with North Macedonia's Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski. A journalist from Alsat TV then took the opportunity to ask a question about statements by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

- How do you interpret last week's statement from Ukrainian President Zelensky that he has information that Russia is planning militarily to destabilize the Balkans? Have you contacted Kiev regarding that information? asked the journalist.

- We see no immediate military threat from Russia against any NATO ally or region. But of course we are vigilant, watch closely what Russia does and stand united, the NATO chief replied, a message he then repeated once more:

- Again, we see no immediate military threat to any NATO ally.

North Macedonia has been a member of NATO since 2019.


Zelensky: Russia wants to invade more countries
The Ukrainian president has repeatedly said that Russia intends to attack more countries than Ukraine. Last month he claimed that Russia is planning to invade the Baltic states, i.e. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

- This is clear information from our intelligence service, he said then.


And on Thursday last week, Zelensky claimed that Russia was behind the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and that the next target is the Balkan countries.

- Look closely at the Balkans. Believe me, we are getting information: Russia has a long-term plan. The Middle East, then it will be the Balkans, at least, if the countries of the world do nothing now, it will strike again soon, the Ukrainian president said .

Stoltenberg: Putin wanted to stop NATO expansion
Stoltenberg's statements on Tuesday, in which he denied that Russia poses a military threat to NATO, may seem to be at odds with the concept document produced at the military alliance's summit in Madrid last summer.

At the time it was said that: "The Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to the security of our allies and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area."

Now, almost a year and a half later, and after several months of expensive and unsuccessful Ukrainian counter-offensive, the Russian threat seems to be downplayed from the NATO side. At the same time, the leaders of the military alliance seemed to give Russian President Vladimir Putin at least partly the truth about the reason for the war in Ukraine.

- One of the reasons why Putin started a war against Ukraine was because he did not want Ukraine to join the alliance. And he wanted more than that: He wanted NATO to promise not to expand NATO further, Jens Stoltenberg said at the press conference.

However, the NATO chief also stated that NATO is now expanding with more member states, which means a "strategic defeat" for Putin.