Putin Furious: 90,000 NATO Troops Massed on Ukraine’s Border

About 20,000 soldiers and 3,500 units of equipment from 9 NATO countries gathered in the Poland-Ukraine border. According to NATO, this means testing the Polish Armed Forces’ response to a potential crisis in an exercise called Dragon-24 (DR-24). The participants include Poland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The exercise is part of the larger Steadfast Defender-24 (STDE-24) series, involving 90,000 soldiers from NATO, which aims to demonstrate deterrence and defense capabilities. This exercise marks NATO’s largest demonstration of defense capabilities in decades. Russia responded by strengthening its military forces in the north and west of the country to counter what Moscow perceives as a build-up of NATO forces near Russia and the possibility of entering into Ukraine, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday. The Kremlin has warned that if NATO sends combat troops to Ukraine, a direct conflict between the alliance and Russia