NATO’s Defense Ministers decided that the alliance should launch 4 military battalions consisting of 4,000 soldiers in the Baltic countries in response to Russia’s decision to deploy 330,000 military men along its western border. The USA is to deploy a battalion of 900 soldiers to Eastern Poland, as well as a contingent of tanks and artillery to Eastern Europe. In May 2017 a battalion consisting of 800 soldiers from Great Britain, Denmark and France will be sent to Estonia. Canada and Italy are to deploy military troops to Latvia. Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg and Croatia will deploy military staff to Lithuania. Great Britain is to send Typhoon fighter jets to Romania to do air policing near the Black Sea. Reuters information agency called the forthcoming military deployment to Eastern Europe the biggest military concentration around Russia after the Cold War.

Bulgaria was not mentioned in the forthcoming maneuvers, which means that Sofia shows reticence towards the future increase of NATO forces near the border with Russia. Indeed, Bulgaria’s Minister of Defense Nikolay Nenchev announced that Bulgarian military men would not participate at NATO’s new battalions along the alliance’s eastern border with Russia. That country has not been asked yet to participate in that mission and it does not intend to join the future military formations, because it believes that its current engagement to participate with 400 soldiers in the multinational NATO brigade in Romania on rotational principle is enough.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that he expected that the alliance would decide to boost its presence in the Black Sea region in February 2017. That topic has been subject to discussions for a very long time, but NATO has not made a final decision, because the issue is very delicate, especially in the context of the situation in Ukraine. During the latest meeting in Brussels this week many NATO defense ministers showed concern of the situation in the Black Sea region and underlined the necessity of increased military trainings in that region. Sofia showed reticence on that issue as well and ruled out possible agreements between separate NATO members. Minister Nenchev is against possible agreement in that field between Bulgaria and Romania and Bulgaria and Turkey, yet he did not rule out the possibility that Bulgaria and Romania may adopt a common position before the actual discussions in NATO in December. However, this operation is not part of the large concentration of military forces along NATO’s border with Russia. It is rather part of the international efforts aimed at curbing the migration pressure towards Europe through the Mediterranean. Bulgaria has been directly affected by the migration wave. That is why it has been participating in that mission, too.