Alexander Grushko, the deputy foreign minister of Russia, stated on Sunday that the 2024 Steadfast Defender exercises by NATO represent a definitive and irreversible return to the Cold War plans.
The exercises are set to begin next week and will be the largest in decades, according to a statement made earlier by General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe. They will also span many months. “These exercises are another component of the hybrid war that the West has waged against Russia,” Grushko said. “By conducting exercises of such magnitude — 90,000 personnel and 31 countries — NATO has definitively and irreversibly reverted to the Cold War schemes, where the military planning, resources and infrastructure are tailored for confrontation with Russia,” he noted. “This is precisely the idea behind the exercises,” Grushko said. “They will encompass a series of maneuvers and drills to practice possible scenarios of conflict with a comparable adversary in all operational domains and on all fronts in the contact zone.”
