FRANKFURT (Reuters) – NATO’s recent move to strengthen its eastern border is aimed at containing Russia, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday, adding it must be clear to Moscow that the alliance will be ready to defend itself if necessary.
Speaking at the East German Economic Forum, which was also attended by Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, Scholz said Germany had played a leading role in NATO’s presence in the Baltics on the Russian border for nearly a decade.
“And because the threat from Russia will continue, we and other allies decided last year to deploy additional units to the Baltic states and to permanently station an entire brigade there in the future,” Scholz said, according to the manuscript of the speech.
“But this shift in security policy is necessary to show Russia that we are ready to defend every square inch of NATO territory from attack.”
He said diplomacy would only succeed from a position of strength, adding that it was absolutely vital that the Baltic states could fully rely on NATO allies to come to their defense if attacked by Russia.
“And this is the message for us. But this is also a message for Russia. Because the credibility of this promise is, of course, also part of Russia’s calculations.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week warned NATO members against allowing Ukraine to fire its weapons at Russia after several Western allies lifted restrictions on the use of weapons donated to Kyiv.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg rejected those warnings on Friday, saying the alliance had heard them many times before and that self-defense was not escalation.