MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The statement was made following the meeting of the NATO leaders in Croatia's Split this weekend.
"With these four battle groups, we are not talking exclusively about a training presence. This force is to serve as a deterrent and if necessary as a fighting force. The rules will be different," Pavel said cited by The Wall Street Journal adding that the deployment will be carried out by May 2017.
At the NATO summit in Warsaw on July 8, the Alliance's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said that the military bloc would strengthen its presence in Eastern Europe on a rotational basis with four battalions in Poland and in the Baltic nations. The United States will lead the troops in Poland, while the United Kingdom will head the battalion in Estonia, Germany the one in Lithuania, and Canada that in Latvia.
