Recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about NATO, claiming that Alliance policies are a threat to world peace and security.

NATO policies introduced after the 2014 Ukraine crisis - aimed at reinforcing NATO’s Eastern flank and reassuring Central and Eastern European allies worried about possible threats from Russia – do not threaten global security. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and amid emerging security challenges in the Middle East and North Africa in 2014, NATO leaders at the Wales Summit adopted the Readiness Action Plan, a comprehensive package of enhanced collective defence and deterrent measures designed to ensure the transatlantic alliance could respond swiftly and firmly to changes in its security environment. The Plan included the enhancement of air and maritime policing efforts and the conduct of more military exercises focused in collective defence and crisis-management along NATO’s eastern border. As clearly stated by NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu, the Baltic military exercises known as BALTOPS, which are now in their 47th year, are not directed against any one in particular.