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Russia sees US, NATO presence in East Europe as security risk: Analyst

Friday, 01 April 2016 4:12 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 01 April 2016 4:11 AM ]

A US Army M1A2 Abrams battle tank is pictured during the joint military drill “Kabile – 2015” with Bulgaria’s army at Novo Selo military ground, June 25, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

Press TV has conducted an interview with Paul Magno, a peace activist, and Bob Ayers, a former US intelligence officer in Somerset, to discuss the deployment of US forces along Russia’s western borders.

Magno says Russia sees the US and NATO’s military presence in Eastern Europe as a “persistent security challenge.”

There has been Western aggression in the eastern parts of Europe, where the US has entered some former Soviet Union members, he says, adding that, “The Russians have seen the absorption of much of Eastern Europe into NATO as Western aggression.”

He says the troop deployment in Eastern Europe is “an intensification of antagonisms,” and warns that if tensions between Russia and the NATO allies escalated, a nuclear war could occur.

“There is a dangerous game that both countries (the US and Russia) are playing, when they are jostling each other with the nuclear threat looming over those conflicts in both Europe and in Syria.”

Ayers, for his part, says there is “an increased awareness that some of Russia’s military excursions in Ossetia, the Crimea and eastern Ukraine can no longer be ignored.” He says NATO wants to show a symbolic gesture to Russia to signal that if the Russians push forward toward the West, the United States’ European allies are ready to respond.

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