NATO navies should beef up against Russia: commanders: NATO should beef up its maritime arm in response to the rising threat from an increasingly "bold" and "aggressive" Russia, commanders said on Wednesday.
The 28-member defence alliance's naval forces have in recent years focused on issues such as counter-terrorism and piracy, but speakers at a London conference said the group needed to prepare more to counter Russian military ambitions.
"Russian international maritime presence has grown significantly in recent years, specifically since the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014," senior NATO commander General Adrian Bradshaw, told a conference in London on NATO's naval future.
"The Russian Federation is shadowing and presumably collecting intelligence from NATO nation naval units in the Baltic, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, using methods that can be considered bold and sometimes aggressive," he said.
One area that NATO will focus on is how to better project maritime force on land using amphibious units and air power, said British Vice Admiral Peter Hudson.
