The first day of the two-day NATO summit in the Lithuania capital concluded on Tuesday with an agreement to bring individual defense spending to at least 2% of GDP and have 300,000 troops at high readiness deployed in certain parts of the world, among other measures. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described it as the "most comprehensive defense plans since the end of the Cold War."
"The defense plans that were adopted yesterday, as a politician, I, maybe, don’t understand all the intricacies, but I’m clever enough to listen what all the generals are saying. And all the generals are saying that this was an absolutely prerequisite to make sure that all of the contingencies are taken care of, all the chains of command are worked out in finer detail and the plans are adapted to the new reality," Karins said ahead of the summit's second day, adding "not to say that there were no plans beforehand, but now it’s much much more concrete."
Other plans under NATO's updated security policy include training more soldiers, conducting exercises with the military of the countries they will defend in line with regional defense strategies and an increase in defense production.
The regional plans provide for a joint response to aerial, naval, ground, space, and cyber threats, as well as terrorist attacks. Geographically they are divided into three zones: North (North Atlantic and the Arctic), Center (Central Europe) and South (Black and Mediterranean Seas).
Moscow stresses that in reality NATO is an offensive alliance that promotes instability and aggression.
"This [NATO] is not an alliance that was created, conceived and designed in order to ensure stability and security. This is an offensive alliance. This is an alliance that brings instability, which brings aggression," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.