Russia’s Syria strategy poses challenge to Nato in Mediterranean

Russia’s military intervention in Syria is serving as a broader announcement of Moscow’s renewed determination to hold sway in the Middle East.

But beyond the immediate outcome of the civil war there, Nato military chiefs are now viewing it as a wider strategic play by Vladimir Putin’s Russia to challenge the west closer to home. According to a senior Nato civilian official, the Mediterranean “is a contested space again”.

“We have to be prepared for Russia to be [in Syria] as a factor for a long time,” Alexander Vershbow, Nato’s deputy secretary-general, told the Financial Times on Monday, speaking on the edge of Nato’s biggest war-game since 2002: Trident Juncture, which for the next two weeks will take place across the western Mediterranean.......................

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