NATO plans full-scale military presence at border, says Stoltenberg – The Telegraph

(This April 9 story removes ‘permanent’ from headline and first paragraph to match updated Telegraph article after NATO said it asked the newspaper to correct the original version)

(Reuters) – NATO is working on plans for a full-scale military presence on its border in an effort to battle future Russian aggression, The Telegraph reported, citing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

NATO was “in the midst of a very fundamental transformation” that will reflect “the long-term consequences” of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions, Stoltenberg said in an interview with the newspaper.

“What we see now is a new reality, a new normal for European security. Therefore, we have now asked our military commanders to provide options for what we call a reset, a longer-term adaptation of NATO,” it cited Stoltenberg as saying.

Stoltenberg, who recently said he would extend his term as head of the alliance by a year, also said in the interview that decisions on the reset would be made at a NATO summit to be held in Madrid in June.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War Two and led Western nations to rethink their defense policies.

(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis and John Stonestreet)