Spain offered on Thursday to shoot Air Force fighter spurts to Bulgaria as part of a plan from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to discourage an implicit Russian irruption in Eastern Europe.
Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles also reaffirmed Spain’s commitment to NATO but indicated that the government-supported “de-escalation” and political end to the current extremity, urged by Russia’s growing aggression against Ukraine.
In February 2021, the Air Force transferred six Eurofighter spurts to the Mihail Kogălniceanu airbase, which is located near the megacity of Constanta in Romania. From this base, the spurts were carried out covering details of the Black Sea. This time, Spain’s Defense Chief of Staff offered to repeat the charge in Bulgaria if the logistic problems involved with the operation were resolved. This charge would run resemblant to the bone that takes place in spring in Lithuania. The four-month operation in Lithuania, which Spain will be carrying out for the ninth time, is also aimed at guarding the air space of the Baltics against possible Russian irruptions.
What’s more, the Defense Ministry has pushed forward the objectification of the Blas de Lezo frigate into NATO’s endless line, which will operate in the western Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The Blas de Lezo, which is one of the most ultramodern frigates in the Spanish cortege, was meant to join the NATO line in many weeks’ time, but this has been pushed forward to the coming week due to the rising pressures with Russia. The Meteoro, a meteor-class coastal command vessel, known by the Spanish acronym BAM, also set passage on Monday from Las Palmas in Gran Canaria to join the Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 2, which it’ll lead for six months in an operation anticipated to also take place in the western Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
Since Russia adjoined the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, Spain has laboriously shared in NATO’s measures to increase its presence in Eastern Europe. Its main donation has come from ground support, with 346 dogfaces and the Leopardo and Pizarro armoured fighting vehicles posted at Adazi base in Latvia, 120 kilometres from the Russian border. The charge of this eastern legion, which is under the command of Canada, is to show NATO’s solidarity with the Baltic countries and advise Russia that any aggression against these countries would be a protestation of war against NATO.
These operations were formerly planned to go ahead before Russia escalated pressures by calling colors on the border of Ukraine. What’s new is that NATO has held an extraordinary meeting of its military commission for the first time, and given instructions to dock investiture times and the period in which it could respond with force to ensure it’s ready for combat.
Despite this, sources from NATO say that not indeed in the worst-case script is the alliance considering military conflict with Russia over Ukraine. Ukraine doesn’t belong to NATO and as similar isn’t covered by the North Atlantic Treaty, popularly known as the Washington Treaty, which commits to collective defence in the case of aggression. Indeed, one of Russia’s pretensions with the current extremity is to gain guarantees that Ukraine will no way join NATO.