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Russia is Stronger than Europe: US State Dept.

Russia is Stronger than Europe: US State Dept.
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Russia's military clout eclipses Europe's, making it a "real" threat from "the Baltic to the Black Sea," a senior US State Department official claimed, citing large-scale drills conducted by Russia within its own borders as proof of sinister intentions.

Russia is Stronger than Europe: US State Dept.

"The threat to [the West's] collective security posed by Russia is clear, and we on both sides of the Atlantic cannot ignore it," Brian Hook, the State Department's director of policy planning and a senior adviser to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said.

He made his remarks while addressing the Center for Strategic & International Studies' Transatlantic Forum on Thursday.

Hook went on to liken the level of the threat the West saw from the Soviet Union with the one it sees from modern Russia, claiming that "as in the past, the threat runs from the Baltic to the Black Sea."

Unlike the USSR, modern Russia, according to Hook, "lacks an ideological coherence that informs its actions."

And what's even worse, "Military arrangement of forces in Europe favors Russia," Hook said.

To further prove Moscow's "military encroachment," Hook pointed to the planned modernization of Russia's armed forces and the regular military exercises it stages within its own borders alone or with its allies. He mentioned the Zapad 2017 wargames in September, which Russia and Belarus conducted in accordance with NATO rules, duly notifying the alliance of the exercises' defensive nature.

The Zapad drills were a trigger for a bout of hysteria in some NATO and allied countries, generating fears of an "invasion."

In the wake of the exercises, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg even had to cool down some hot heads, dismissing claims by the Ukrainian military that some Russian troops were left behind in Belarus as lacking any evidence.

NATO regularly stages drills on Russia's doorstep, involving tens of thousands of troops, with US soldiers actively participating.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

 

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