NATO will add missile defense assets along the alliance’s eastern borders to guard against any potential threats that arise from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Air Force and NATO officials said Wednesday.
The strategy is called “air shielding,” an expression coined during last month’s meeting of NATO leaders in Madrid, said German Brig. Gen. Christoph Pliet, deputy chief of staff operations at NATO Allied Air Command headquarters at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
The idea is to “deter and shield against any possible Russian aggression,” Pliet said, going beyond what NATO already has employed on the eastern flank since the Feb. 24 invasion.
Additional assets will be deployed for four to six months at a time, shoring up an area from Turkey to the Baltic states, Pliet said, while speaking with reporters alongside Maj. Gen. Joel L. Carey, U.S. Air Forces in Europe — Air Forces Africa director of operations, strategic deterrence and nuclear integration. Läs artikel