Also, the US government would respond “decisively” if Russia deploys missiles or military infrastructure in Venezuela or Cuba.
The president of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, considered this Thursday “worrying” that Russia could transfer missiles to countries such as Venezuela or Cuba due to its implications for allied security.
“It is not NATO territory, Venezuela and Cuba, but I can imagine that there are countries, allies, that are concerned about such a possibility,” Bauer said at a press conference at the end of a meeting of the Alliance Defense chiefs. , meeting in the Military Committee.
Also, the United States government would respond “decisively” if Russia deploys missiles or military infrastructure in Venezuela or Cuba, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to US President Joe Biden, said Thursday.
In a press conference, Sullivan added that this issue was not discussed during the talks that Washington and Moscow have had in the last week, and he thought that it could be a “bragging” of the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Riabkov, who It should not be taken too seriously.
“If Russia were to move in that direction, we would deal with it decisively,” Sullivan said at a White House news conference, without elaborating.
Admiral Rob Bauer, when asked about Moscow’s response measures, did not rule out the deployment of military infrastructure in Cuba and Venezuela. “I don’t want to confirm anything (…), nor rule anything out,” he said.
Bauer claimed not to have “seen the message” from Riabkov, and therefore could not give “a military response.”
However, he considered “worrying if Russia takes missiles to other countries that may have an impact on security.”
On the talks between the United States and NATO with Russia in Geneva on Monday and in Brussels on Wednesday, respectively, and the meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) today in Vienna to address the Russian military build-up with Ukraine and its implications for security in EuropeBauer said he hoped that now the Russian diplomatic delegations would return to Moscow to brief Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As stated, it will be Putin who “will decide on the way forward.”
In any case, he considered that the different meetings held this week, “in themselves, have not led to major changes on the Ukrainian border.”
The concentration of Russian troops that began in the spring of last year and that it continued into the fall is “very worrying,” he said.
Also asked about Estonia’s request for more NATO troops in the Baltic countries due to Russia’s threat to Ukraine, Bauer recalled that the Allied Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, has already said that if there is a new Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory “We would have to review our position, and that includes southern and eastern Europe.”
“I know that there are several countries interested in hosting these forces, but as far as I know, it has not been made official yet. So I can’t say there was a decision,” the admiral said.
He explained that, “in general, we are looking at possibilities (…) if there are nations that want to provide forces as they do in the battalions in the northeast”, referring to the four multinational battalions that NATO deployed in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to as a result of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014.
“There are preparations, but not yet decisions,” he said.
Lastly, asked about a possible Alliance operation in the African region of the Sahel, hit by jihadism and where mercenaries from the Russian private company Wagner are taking up positions -as in Mali-, Bauer ruled out that possibility.
However, he pointed out that France and other allies could be involved in operations in that area. (I)
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