No country can outdo NATO militarily - Commander of NATO Maritime Group

RIGA - Russia may have military superiority over individual NATO member states, but no country can militarily challenge the whole of the Alliance, Rear Admiral Joaquin Ruiz Escagedo, Commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG-1), told LETA. 

The Spanish admiral who has arrived in Riga on the frigate ESPS Almirante Juan de Borbon, said that the Maritime Group's mission in the Baltic and North Sea is to monitor Russia's activities in the region and ensure the security of the Baltic Sea region. 

In the admiral's words, in the current geopolitical environment, "we must be ready to respond if a NATO country is threatened". In the admiral's view, it is the Alliance's ability to be ready to respond immediately to the most unexpected challenges, including technological ones, that most effectively ensures the security of the Baltic Sea region.

"Russia may have military superiority over individual member states, but not over the whole alliance, which is a 32-nation format. I do not see any country that could challenge NATO militarily," Ruiz Escagedo told LETA, commenting on statements by some Western experts that Russia has military superiority in the Baltic Sea.

The admiral also stressed that the Baltic Sea is very important for NATO and the military alliance is ready to defend the territories of all member states. At the same time, Ruiz  Escagedostressed that NATO has sufficient naval forces in the Baltic Sea region to perform its tasks.

Regarding concerns that NATO does not have the ability to deny Russia access to the Baltic Sea, the admiral said that NATO is acting strictly within the law. And legally, all maritime nations must have access to their waters. Another thing is that NATO strictly sees to it that no country carries out illegal activities in other countries' waters.

The Spanish admiral also noted that it is now much more difficult for Russia to carry out any provocation in the territorial waters of NATO countries than before the war, because the alliance has significantly stepped up monitoring.