Nato is to hold large-scale war games on Russia’s border a couple of weeks before the EU, at an event in Lithuania, plans to take away a former Soviet jewel: Ukraine.
The military exercise, called Steadfast Jazz, will see the Western alliance put 6,000 of its soldiers, mariners and airmen through their paces in Poland and in the Baltic Sea region from 2 to 9 November.
One hundred Ukrainian troops will also join a “live-fire” part of the drill in Poland’s Drawsko Pomorskie training area.
Ukraine’s ambition to join Nato faded when Germany blocked its “membership action plan” in 2008.
But day-to-day Nato relations are alive and well. Apart from joint manoeuvres, Ukraine also contributes forces to Nato operations in Afghanistan, the Indian Ocean, Kosovo and the Mediterranean Sea.
It still hopes to one day join the EU.
If things go well, it will sign a political association and free trade treaty with the European Union at a summit in Vilnius on 28 November, all but killing Russia’s plan to pull the former Soviet republic into a “Eurasian Union” instead.
Andrew Rettman