The military presence of NATO forces in Poland, in Romania, in Slovakia and in other states from the eastern part of the Alliance protects the space used by the allies to support Ukraine, the secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Monday during a press conference in Brussels, according to Agerpres.

Asked if he sees Friday’s incident in which Russian missiles entered the airspace of the Republic of Moldova and approached the airspace of Romania as a warning from Russia and if there is any threat to the supply routes through which NATO countries deliver military support to Ukraine, Stoltenberg said that „wars are dangerous” and that is why it is so important that NATO shows vigilance to prevent any escalation.

Wars are also dangerous because incidents and accidents can happen. That is why we are so vigilant at NATO to prevent any escalation beyond Ukraine, Stoltenberg said in the press conference on the eve of the meeting of defense ministers from the allied countries.

He said that this is one of the reasons why NATO has increased its military presence in the eastern part of the Alliance and in the Black Sea region since the fall of 2021, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with air, naval and land capabilities.

We did this in part to monitor, to protect, to make sure that there would be no escalation beyond Ukraine, and to be able to manage incidents or accidents that might arise when we have a full-scale war in our neighborhood in Ukraine, explained the NATO SecGen.

But of course this military presence of NATO forces in Poland, in Romania, in Slovakia, in other countries from the eastern part of the Alliance protects the space used by NATO allies to support Ukraine. And this makes it even more important to increase our presence in the eastern part of the Alliance. NATO is not part of the conflict but we support Ukraine, Ukraine’s right to self-defense is a right provided for in the UN Charter and we have the right to support Ukraine, Jens Stoltenberg also said.

Agerpres