Russia said on Monday that NATO is destabilizing northern Europe and the Baltics by carrying out military drills in the area, and then preceded to announced that it too will launch more military exercises in 2015 - more than 4,000 of them.
"The exercises will take place in the summer period simultaneously on several training grounds within Russia and abroad," said Yaroslav Roshupkin, a spokesman for Russia's Central Military District, according to Reuters.
"They will be extended in time and bring together under unified command tens of thousands of servicemen of the Central Military District, branches and types of the armed forces, as well as other security ministries and agencies."
New weapons will also be tested during the drills, according to Roshupkin.
In response to Russia's accusations, NATO responded by blaming Moscow for causing instability in the area.
"It is entirely appropriate for NATO countries in particular to work together to respond to what is a change of Russia's dealings with NATO and indeed the non-NATO European countries," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told a parliamentary committee in London, International Business Times reported.
Hammond also said he was concerned with Russia's "extremely aggressive probing" of British air space.
The past few months has seen tensions rise between Russia and the West, largely due to the Ukrainian crisis. In what many believe is a response to major economic sanctions imposed by the West, Russia has been flexing its military muscle in various locations around the world, including plans to send long-range bombers to conduct regular patrols of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
In late October, NATO also said that British, German, Danish, Norwegian, Portuguese and Turkish planes had all intercepted Russian planes that were straying too close to foreign borders.
The commander of U.S. land forces in Europe said in November that several hundred troops will remain in Poland and the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, for at least the next year, to reassure eastern European allies that NATO would offer protection from Russian aggression, reported The Guardian.
