The Foreign Ministry on Thursday said Russia will take ?€?compensatory measures?€? in response to U.S. plans to expand its military presence in Europe ?€” a policy move explicitly designed to deter feared Russian aggression against NATO nations in the future, news agency RIA Novosti reported.
?€?A symmetrical response for this [increased U.S. presence in Europe] is not completely necessary, I'm sure. Compensatory measures to maintain the usual military strategic balance are and will be taken,?€? said Andrei Kelin, head of the Foreign Ministry's European Cooperation Department.
The U.S. is planning to allocate $3.4 billion of its 2017 military budget to strengthening European security amid fresh calls in Washington to bolster NATO defenses against a possible Russian invasion of the three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
A recent report by the influential RAND Corp claimed that numerous war games and studies looking into NATO's current ability to defend the Baltics against a Russian assault found that Moscow could take the region in just three days, leaving NATO unable to respond without sparking a nuclear war.
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