NATO has warned that the West should step up preparations for the unexpected,including a war with Russia, as Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine is nearing the two-year mark amid worries over possible political fatigue among some of Kyiv's Western allies.
"We have to realize it's not a given that we are in peace. And that's why we [NATO forces] are preparing for a conflict with Russia," Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the NATO military committee chief, said in Brussels ahead of the start of the alliance's largest exercise since the end of the Cold War.
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The alliance needs to be on high alert for war and "expect the unexpected," Bauer said, adding, “In order to be fully effective, also in the future, we need a warfighting transformation of NATO.”
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also warned that the war in Ukraine could expand to neighboring countries.
"We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day -- most recently again against our friends in the Baltic states," Pistorius told the Tagesspiegel newspaper on January 19.
To step up its preparedness, NATO will soon be launching the Steadfast Defender 2024 exercise, which will run through May and will involve some 90,000 troops who will rehearse the alliance's execution of its regional plans.
The exercise “will show that NATO can conduct and sustain complex multi-domain operations over several months, across thousands of kilometers, from the High North to Central and Eastern Europe, and in any condition,” the 31-nation organization said in a statement.
With the front line in eastern Ukraine largely unchanged for months, Russia has kept striking Ukraine's cities and towns with drones and cruise missiles, while Kyiv has been targeting economic and military objectives deeper inside Russia.
On January 19, a Ukrainian drone reportedly attacked an oil depot in Klintsy, in Russia's Bryansk region, sparking a fire at oil storage tanks before being shot down by Russian air defense.
"An aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicle was suppressed by Russian electronic warfare systems," regional governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said on Telegram.
"During the destruction of the air target, ammunition was dropped on the Klintsy oil depot," Bogomaz wrote, adding that the fire was being put out by firefighters. He said there were no human casualties.
Social media footage purportedly showed a fire burning alongside what appeared to be storage tanks.
The attack on Klintsy came a day after the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down a Ukrainian drone that had attempted to target a Russian Baltic Sea oil terminal in St. Petersburg.
The drone wreckage fell on the premises of the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, according to Russian officials.
St. Petersburg is Russia’s second-largest city, with some 5.6 million inhabitants and is located at 900 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border.