The United States is sending heavy military equipment, including tanks and other weapons, to new NATO member states for the first time since the Cold War ended, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter confirmed Tuesday, saying the decision was made in response to Russia's provocations.
The announcement is coming just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he planned to add more than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles "capable of penetrating even the most technologically advanced missile defense systems" to Moscow's arsenal, reports
CBS News.
Such "aggressive rhetoric, aggressive behavior, the kind of thing that doesn't belong in a Europe of today" is making America's NATO allies nervous, Carter told CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan during an interview in Estonia, one of the nations that could come under threat, on Tuesday.
"We continue to hope that Russia will change course," Carter said. "I don't see any signs of that, but we continue to hold the door open."
Carter told Brennan he is taking Putin "at his word," when asked if he sees Putin's words as a real military threat or just rhetoric.
"What's odd about it is the level of rhetoric," he said. "That's what's so out of tune with the times and the way responsible world leaders have conducted themselves with respect to talking about what are very fearsome weapons."
Allies such as Estonia, Latvia and Poland have been alarmed not only by Russia's support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, but also by the annexation of Crimea.
The American weapons are being added to NATO's "eastern flank" and are meant to be used as "heavy combat equipment for training purposes primarily," while serving to boost NATO's deterrent powers, said Carter.
Earlier this week,
Carter criticized Putin for announcing the plans for the 40 intercontinental missiles.
"Nuclear weapons are not something that should be the subject of loose rhetoric," Carter told reporters Sunday, just before he was to attend his first NATO summit as Secretary of Defense in Brussels.
"I can't explain to you why he would posture in that way but it is not appropriate judgment, in my opinion, for leaders to be speaking that way about something as grave as nuclear weapons."
Putin has insisted that his government is "not aggressive," but instead is "persistent in pursuing our interests."
In an interview last Friday with
"CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose, Putin said the war in eastern Ukraine would end if Kiev would implement measures that have already been approved, and said that Russia would never have sent in weapons if Ukraine's leaders had not forced its citizens into approving of the government's NATO goals.
The Putin regime has denied in the past that Russian troops and hardware are backing Ukraine's rebel forces, but Putin did not repeat that assertion during his interview with Rose. He has maintained, though, that Russia's increased presence in Ukraine and other countries are because of NATO's spread into neighboring countries against citizens' will.
Putin told Rose that Washington is is "interfering with our internal political processes" and taking part in "interventionist" security measures around the world.
"We are in fact being told that the United States know(s) better what we need. Let us define our own interests and our needs ourselves," Putin told Rose.
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