NATO countries "greatly exceeded" their commitment to deploy 300,000 combat-ready troops within 30 days of a hypothetical Russian attack on alliance members, a senior NATO official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
That commitment was made in 2023 after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which NATO leaders often say could be followed by an attack on members of the alliance.
Moscow denies plans to attack NATO countries (for example, Putin said on June 5 that it was "nonsense, nonsense" and those who "made it up" were "as stupid as this table"). Russian officials denied attacking Ukraine in the same way before the full-scale invasion.
300 thousand people is a general figure, its breakdown by individual countries has not been published. "The offers from the allies that are on the table confidently exceed the 300 thousand that we have established. These are the forces that the allies have told us: "They are available to you now at this level of readiness [30 days],", Reuters quoted a NATO representative as saying.