The General Secretary of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Tuesday that the alliance is deploying its response force for the first time in its history.
Stoltenberg claimed that “NATO is a defensive alliance that does not seek conflict with Russia, but Moscow must stop the war immediately.”
The claim was made despite the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO member and as such cannot invoke the defensive treaty.
Stoltenberg added that “the alliance will not engage in a military conflict in Ukraine, and will not send soldiers to fight there”, noting that each country in the alliance provides different military support to Ukraine in addition to financial support.
He also said that “NATO stands in solidarity with Ukraine in the face of the unacceptable and unjustified invasion of its territory” and that NATO members “will stand together against Putin’s war on Ukraine.”
The NATO response force is a high readiness force consisting of land, air, sea, and special forces units able to rapidly deploy to operations wherever needed.
The purpose of this force is to provide a highly efficient rapid reaction force to support missions that are considered needed for the Western military alliance.
