Translated by J. Arnoldski

NATO structures are increasingly engulfing Europe. The director of the Center for Geopolitical Expertise and member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, Valery Korovin, expressed the opinion live on Sputnik radio that Europe is nothing more than expendable material for American military interests.

On Tuesday, the ministers of defense of the 28 member countries of NATO approved the deployment of one of the alliance’s battalions on a rotational basis in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland. As a diplomatic source close to the North Atlantic Alliance told RIA Novosti, the deployment of advanced units in the composition of combined NATO battalions in Poland and the Baltic counties will begin, as expected, in January 2017.

Earlier, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg stated that the battalions in Poland and the Baltic states would be under NATO command while the greatest part of each of the units would be made up of the soldiers of the so-called “leading countries.” Three of the four battalions will be composed of US, German, and UK troops. The details are to be worked out before the alliance’s summit which will be held in Warsaw from July 8th-9th.

Moscow has repeatedly expressed concern over NATO’s plans and has remarked that this can upset the strategic stability in the region. The Press Secretary of the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov, stated earlier that while Russia does not pose a threat to anyone, it will not leave the West’s actions without attention.

Even in the West, NATO’s plans have been subject to criticism. For example, the other day the Die Zeit columnist Jochen Bittner wrote that the alliance is making the biggest mistake in its history. If NATO pursuers the construction of its “missile defense system” in Europe, then this could spell trouble, Bitterer believes.

Recently in Romania, the first American missile defense base in Europe began operation, and the construction of another in Poland is to be completed in 2018. The director of the Center for Geopolitical Expertise and member of the Public Chamber of Russia, Valery Korovin, remarked live on Sputnik radio that NATO is a tool in the hands of the US whose goal is provoking and weakening Russia.

“You have to understand that the US stands behind NATO, and it sees the world through the prism of its interests. NATO is some kind of tool, an attempt to use someone else’s hands, and namely the hands of Europeans, or even better those of Eastern Europeans, to provoke Russia and drag her into a peripheral military conflict,” Valery Korovin said.

Europe, in his opinion, has been assigned the role of the victim by American strategists.

“For American military interests, Europe is an expendable item, some kind of victim to be sacrificed for the sake of the unipolar, US-centric globalized world. And this has been planned. Eastern Europe is to be the first victim which will be put on the altar of American power,” the analyst believes.