Thanks for following along today. We are going to hand over to the US politics live blog, where Lauren Gambino will be covering a press conference shortly with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the EU high representative Josep Borrell, and then, later, Joe Biden’s press conference with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. Follow it all here:
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Nato is considering a longer-term military posture in eastern Europe to strengthen its defences, the alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said, Reuters reports.
Nato defence ministers are expected to discuss reinforcements at their next meeting on 16-17 February.
Stoltenberg said:
We are considering more longer-term adjustments to our posture, our presence in the eastern part of the alliance. No final decision has been made on that but there is a process now going on within Nato.
If Russia really wants less Nato close to the borders, they get the opposite.
He was speaking at a press conference with the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, making a reference to the last reinforcement of Nato defences. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Nato countries deployed battlegroups in Poland and the Baltic states.
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