While talking about Russia during the event hosted by the Atlantic Council, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also spoke about Georgia.

“So we have seen a pattern of behavior by Russia over the last years, where they have invested heavily in new modern military capabilities, conventional and nuclear. They have intimidated neighbors, they have used military force against neighbors, in Georgia and in Ukraine, illegally annexing Crimea, destabilising Eastern Ukraine. And then we have seen that they have tried to interfere or meddle into domestic political processes, in elections, cyberattacks, and different types of hybrid aggressive actions against different NATO allied countries.

So, this pattern of aggressive actions, using everything from military tools to hybrid cyber tools is something which is of course a great concern for all NATO Allies. What we do is partly to provide support to partners, as for instance Ukraine, political support, practical support, or Georgia.

But we have also implemented the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War, triggered by the aggressive actions we saw in 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea. So now we have four combat battlegroups in the eastern part of the Alliance. We never had that before. It"s a completely new thing. We have air policing, we have increased our presence in the Black Sea, in the Baltic Sea. And we have significantly increased the readiness of forces. So altogether, this is a very clear and strong response from NATO Allies as to the aggressive actions by Russia”, - said Jens Stoltenberg.