Russia angry over planned US equipment sites in Eastern Europe

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The plans to create sites of US heavy military equipment in the territory of Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania announced by the Pentagon will border on violation of the NATO-Russia Founding Act, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday, reported BNS.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said, in a response to a question by an unnamed media source, that it is hoping that Washington will give up these plans.

"We would like to hope that the overseas architects of the new edition of the cold war will realize the risks and negative consequences of the forced militarization of one of the calmest regions of the world from a military point of view, will be able to manifest political will and give up the schemes and methods of the bloc conflict era," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website.

"Such measures, if implemented, will border on a violation of the key provision of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, in accordance with which the Alliance assumed an obligation not to deploy considerable combat forces in the territory of said countries on a permanent basis," Zakharova said.

"Such large-scale military preparations done by the U.S. on the absolutely far-fetched pretext of protecting its allies from the non-existent 'Russian threat' are not only not in line with the interests of peace and security in Europe, but again confirm Washington's intention to escalate tensions and disrupt stability on the continent," she said.

It was earlier reported that the US Army is planning to build equipment sites in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. The construction will be finished in these sites by the end of 2016, ideally September.

The maintenance sites for what the army is calling European Activity Sets will be built up to respond to Russia’s continuing incursion into Ukraine.

When the US Army brigades currently based in Europe complete their rotation, their equipment will stay behind in the new facilities for the next arriving unit to use.

Activity sets are "separate sets of equipment outside of prepositioned stocks that are placed around the world to support regionally aligned forces and tailored to meet combatant commanders' needs in specific regions".

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