09 October, 2017
In light of an increasing number of cyberattacks on NATO member states and the organization's allies, the alliance is seeking to ramp up cooperation between its members on sharing national expertise in cyber defense and integrate national experiences in its military structure, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday.
"Our deployments are a direct response to Russia's aggressive actions in Ukraine", Stoltenberg told the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on Monday morning.
He mentioned the Zapad exercise that Russian Federation held with Belarus in September, which brought thousands of troops close to NATO's eastern members and caused concerns about Moscow's intentions given its military interference in Ukraine.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on Monday inaugurated a new multi-national brigade-sized force, headquartered in Romania and designed primarily to counter Russia's increased threat to Southeast Europe following its intervention in Ukraine.
Ukraine will host a session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in 2020, its first time, local media reported Monday, citing a senior parliamentary official.
Still, Stoltenberg said: "Russia is our neighbor. we don't want to isolate Russian Federation".
Russian Federation held the maneuvers - called ZAPAD 2017 - with Belarus near NATO's eastern border in September. There was a review of the progress of the declaration signed there, by defence ministers from the US, Canada, Germany, the UK, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland in 2017, in Brussels. "We are in Afghanistan to protect ourselves".
"Our objective is peace, not war", Romanian President Klaus Iohannis told the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Bucharest. "But we need dialogue from a strong position of defense and discouragement".
