Nato and the Kremlin have traded accusations over the Russian deployment of state-of-the-art missiles in its Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.
Nato on Tuesday accused Russia of “aggressive military posturing”, while Vladimir Putin shot back that Russia was merely responding to Nato aggression.
The rhetoric comes as Europe waits with trepidation to see how a Donald Trump presidency will affect the continent’s security arrangements. Trump said in an interview during his election campaign he would be willing to tell Nato allies, “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself” if he felt they were not contributing enough financially to the alliance.
The UK prime minister, Theresa May, is due to meet Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg at Downing Street on Wednesday and is expected to say he must persuade European countries to meet the Nato commitment to spend 2% of national income on defence.
The European parliament on Tuesday voted 369 to 255 in favour of a plan to deepen defence coordination between member states, in part prompted by Trump’s words.
“Our union is not equipped to face overwhelming defence challenges,” said MEP Urmas Paet, a former foreign minister of Estonia who drafted the resolution. “Europe continues to rely heavily on Nato capabilities and on US solidarity.”
Trump also described Nato as obsolete during the campaign and suggested a military alliance with Russia over Syria could be possible, something which has been cautiously welcomed in Moscow and greeted with horror in many European capitals, particularly in the three Baltic nations, which share a border with Russia.
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