MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th May, 2020) Russia is not planning to hold any military exercises near the line of contact with NATO during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and regrets the lack of direct contact between both parties, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday.
"For the period we are all going through, during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, our military has reported that they are reducing the scale of the exercises and do not plan any exercises near the line of contact with NATO," Lavrov stated at a press conference after a meeting of the Council of the Baltic Sea States foreign ministers earlier in the day.
The Russian diplomat added that Moscow regrets the lack of direct communication between Russian military officials and their NATO counterparts.
"But the main problem, of course, is the lack of mechanisms to establish direct contact between the Russian military and NATO that hаve worked and been very useful. Our NATO colleagues agree only to meetings at the level of the Chief of General Staff, but the mechanisms of practical cooperation with the participation of the military are completely frozen, which we greatly regret," Lavrov remarked.
Despite the ongoing global pandemic, NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group in Latvia held military exercises in April, which saw roughly 600 troops and 100 military vehicles deployed in the south of the country close to the city of Daugavpils.
