Putin beordrar styrkor att gå in i Ukraina - INVASION NU (2022-02-24)

Since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the rise of security challenges from the south, including brutal attacks by ISIL and other terrorist groups across several continents, NATO has implemented the biggest increase in collective defence since the Cold War. For instance, it has tripled the size of the NATO Response Force (NRF), a highly ready and technologically advanced multinational force; established a 5,000-strong Spearhead Force within the NRF; and deployed multinational battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. NATO has also increased its presence in the southeast of the Alliance, centred on a multinational brigade in Romania. The Alliance has further stepped up air policing over the Baltic and Black Sea areas and continues to develop key military capabilities, such as Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. At the Warsaw Summit in July 2016, Allies recognised cyber defence as a new operational domain, to enable better protection of networks, missions and operations; and at the meeting of foreign ministers in November 2019, Allies agreed to recognise space as a new operational domain to "allow NATO planners to make requests for Allies to provide capabilities and services, such as hours of satellite communications."

Following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine – which started in February 2022 – and in line with its defensive planning to protect all Allies, NATO is taking additional steps to further strengthen deterrence and defence across the Alliance. This includes the deployment of the NRF for the first time in a deterrence and defence role. Allies have placed thousands of additional forces at high readiness, ensuring that the NRF continues to have the speed, responsiveness and capability to defend NATO territory and populations. Moreover, at an extraordinary Summit on 24 March 2022, NATO Leaders agreed to significantly strengthen the Alliance’s longer-term deterrence and defence posture. This was followed by a united and firm commitment of Allies, at the Madrid Summit in June 2022, to concrete measures such as deploying additional in-place combat-ready forces on the eastern flank, to be scaled up from the existing battlegroups to brigade-size units where and when required, underpinned by rapidly available reinforcements, prepositioned equipment, and enhanced command and control. They also made initial offers to NATO’s new force model, which will strengthen and modernise the NATO Force Structure and will resource a new generation of military plans. All these steps, together with the release of the 2022 Strategic Concept, which identified Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area” will substantially strengthen NATO’s deterrence and forward defences.