Romania asks for a greater number of NATO soldiers on its territory due to the "threat" posed by Russia

MADRID, 14 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Romania has assured that it needs a greater presence of NATO troops in the long term due to the alleged threat that Russia poses to its security and trusts that a decision will be made at the Madrid summit in this regard, as stated by the minister Romanian Foreign Minister, Bogdan Aurescu.

"I think we need a more consistent presence, although at the moment, if we look at the allied presence in Romania, we already have more than 5,000 allied soldiers," said Aurescu, who has more than doubled the number of US soldiers on Romanian territory. .

This increase in foreign soldiers on Romanian soil would come to swell the ranks of the Battle Group, created a little over a month ago and which is expected to be fully operational by the end of the year, reports the Digi24 network.

In this sense, Minister Aurescu trusts that the next summit of the Alliance to be held in Madrid at the end of June will make decisions that "can guarantee defense and deterrence" against any action by Moscow.

Aurescu has stressed that the objective is to "discourage", but "not provoke", to show "that any type of action against the Alliance is fruitless" or else "cannot have the result expected by anyone" who intends to carry out any type of aggression against the group.

The head of Romanian diplomacy explained that Romania wants Russia to be considered the main threat to the security of the Alliance and its members during the Madrid summit, since it is no longer just the allies on the eastern flank who have been perceiving this risk after the invasion of Ukraine.

"The fact that Western European states, such as France, Belgium, the Netherlands, or Portugal, send troops to Romania, or that Finland and Sweden want to join the Alliance, shows that the perception of the Russian threat is not only on the part of of the countries in the region, which have already experienced the communist regime and direct Russian influence on their own skin," Aurescu said.

"It is absolutely clear that Russia's actions, by the way they act, are the most serious threat to the Alliance. We are facing a conflict in the vicinity of the North Atlantic Alliance, an illegal war of aggression unleashed by Russia without provocation, unjustified, that is not only directed against Ukraine, but that it is a war effort to question European security", emphasized the Romanian minister.