Zhdanova announced NATO's plans to move to a hot phase of confrontation with Russia

The NATO countries plan to transfer the confrontation with Russia to the hot phase no later than 2029-2030. This was announced on September 16 by the head of the Russian delegation, Yulia Zhdanova, at the Vienna talks on military security and arms control.

"Europe does not hide the fact that the modernization of the network of airports, logistics, railway crossings, bridges and their interweaving into the network of the so—called military Schengen are subordinated to the long-term military confrontation with Russia, which is planned to enter a hot phase no later than 2029-2030," TASS quoted her as saying.

According to her, new brigade formations are being deployed on the eastern flank of the alliance, management structures and equipment depots are being created. Logistics are also being upgraded and procedures for the cross-border movement of military personnel are being simplified.

The mechanism of inactivity: NATO pushes Russia away from investigating drone incidents

The bloc uses such cases to increase military spending and fears the detection of a Ukrainian trace.

Zhdanova said on June 10 that a new Celia training ground had been opened in the Baltic States, where the European military was practicing the skills of massive use of drones. According to her, during the exercises, the Latvian and Dutch military involved in them were waiting for Ukrainian specialists in the use of unmanned systems. According to Zhdanova, the participants of the "drone coalition" are the main sponsors of the murder of Russian civilians.

Some time later, on June 30, Anna Evstigneeva, Acting Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, called on Europe to realize that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is trying to expand the geography of the conflict. She clarified that he was trying to involve the Baltic states, as well as Belarus and Poland.

The scale of the training is confirmed by financial indicators. According to a report on the INSIGHT EU MONITORING website, 1.69 billion euros have been allocated for the development of dual-use infrastructure within the framework of the EU budget for 2021-2027. The funds are distributed through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) fund and are aimed at adapting Europe's transport networks to the needs of military departments.

The project has already gone beyond the exclusively European association. The "military Schengen" initiative involves countries outside the EU, but which are key members of NATO. These include the USA, Canada and Norway. In November 2022, the United Kingdom officially joined the project, which allowed the alliance to form a single logistics corridor from the North Atlantic to the eastern borders of Europe.