(Bloomberg) --- Governments in the
Nordic and Baltic region are stepping up their defense preparedness in response
to repeated Russian incursions into their territories.
“What we are doing
is what is to be expected from a military and political alliance: We are
preparing ourselves for what we hope will not happen, we are preparing ourselves
for the worst,” Norway ’s
Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said today in Oslo . “That’s our obligation, that’s an
important step in preventing something from happening.”
At a meeting in the
Norwegian capital today that included U.K. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon,
ministers agreed to step up cross-border training as part of a regional
alliance to ward off any Russian threat. President Vladimir Putin has
repeatedly flouted international airspace rules, a behavior that Fallon
characterized as “provocative.”
The research group
identified three incidents that carried a “high probability” of causing
casualties or direct military conflict, including a narrowly avoided collision
on March 3 between a civilian SAS Group AB airliner taking off from Copenhagen
and a Russian reconnaissance plane operating without its transponder, a device
that identifies a plane.
Abducted Officer
On Sept. 5, an
Estonian intelligence officer was abducted from a border post, while Swedish
military spent much of October hunting down a suspected Russian submarine that
was hiding in Stockholm ’s
archipelago, the group said.
The Nordic and
Baltic region, which is geographically closer to Russia
than the rest of Europe, is coordinating its military preparedness as the
European Union and the U.S.
discuss the possibility of imposing further sanctions on Putin’s
administration. The escalation in tensions follows reports of tanks, artillery
and combat troops moving into eastern Ukraine .
Russian actions in Ukraine are “unacceptable,” Soereide said, also
citing an increase in Russian training in the Arctic
as a further cause for concern. Though Norway
sees no “direct” threat from Russia ,
the development demands a response, she said. Fallon said further Russian
incursions into the region’s airspace won’t be tolerated.
“What’s serious
here is that what we perceive as defensive measures to defend our allies, our
sovereignty, our territorial integrity from any kind of attack is interpreted
in Russia
as something quite different,” Soereide said.
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