Original title: (VIDEO) Russia’s military power is a nightmare for NATO!
The author of the text states that “in addition to being the largest country in the world,” Russia is also one of the most powerful military forces. In 2010, according to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IIS), Russia had 1,027,000 active personnel and about 2,035,000 in reserves. At the end of the article, it is stated that regardless of “whether because of its size and geostrategic position or because of the strength of its army”, Russia is a nightmare for NATO. In addition to the text, a video titled “Russian Military – A nightmare for NATO” was published.
Link to the archived original text can be find here.
According to data published on their website, the Misija24.com portal is “a military site that monitors all current developments in the world on a WAR and SECURITY plan.” Their website did not show any impression, and when we looked at the content of the articles they publish, we have noticed that they were dominated by the Russian “military superiority” narrative, as well as the anti-US and anti-NATO narrative.
It is an absolute lie that Russia is a nightmare for NATO. The North Atlantic Alliance has military-technological defense capabilities to respond to any kind of threat or possible aggression by Russia against any NATO member-state. More precisely, the ratio of forces between the NATO allies and Russia is 3.44: 1.
The author of the text, for unknown reasons, uses data that is 10 years old, instead of using the latest data from the same source from 2019. According to the official data of the “Military Balance 2019”, published by the International Institute for Security Studies (IISS), Russia’s active personnel amounted 900,000 members, which is three and a half times less than the total number of members of the NATO allies (read: 29 member states). The total number of active personnel of the European member-states of NATO alone is twice the number of active personnel of Russia. On the other hand, the size of the Russian reserves is slightly smaller (96,000) than the size of the reserves of the NATO allies.According to the International Institute for Security Studies (IISS) and NATO, the total military expenditures for defense of all NATO allies in 2018 were over 970 billion USD, which is almost 16 times more than the military expenditures for Russia’s defense.
Presented in % of GDP, Russia’s defense budget in 2017 was 4,233%, while in 2018 it was 3.93%. As can be seen, Russia is cutting the defense budget, while the United States and NATO allies are allocating almost identical % of GDP for defense.
If we compare the data from the first and second charts, it can be determined that NATO member states, in addition to being more militarily powerful than Russia, are also economically more developed than Russia.
Last, but not the last, the video posted in addition of the text is taken from the YouTube service, which was released on November 30, 2018 on the YouTube channel of the “Military Forces 21 Centuries” from Russia.The web-portal Mission24.com continuously publishes articles with anti-US and anti-NATO narrative. The F2N2.mk team considers this text as a classic example of Russian propaganda, which is spreading rapidly through Facebook. Given that the celebration of Victory Day over fascism is being held today (May 9th), such posts are intended to present Russia’s “military superiority” over the United States and NATO. The team of F2N2.mk recommends that the data contained in the texts of Mission24.com be taken with reservation.
