As NATO leaders prepare to deploy thousands of troops to Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, Russia has criticized the massive buildup of Western military on its doorstep as being a deliberate provocation towards World War. Russia’s Permanent Representative to NATO, Alexander Brushko, has accused NATO of using these military drills as a pretext to justify justify its actions on the eastern flank. pravdareport.com reports: Moscow took NATO’s recent exercises as a clear signal. “NATO’s largest maneuvers [of airborne troops] since WWII send a clear signal to the world about the peaceful intentions of the alliance,” the head of the International Affairs Committee of the State Duma, Alexei Pushkov, tweeted. According to President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Leonid Ivashov, NATO’s maneuvers provoke Russia to take responsive actions. “If we talk about the NATO maneuvers that have started in Europe, the largest maneuvers since the end of WWII, they are only one event of a series of military events that the US and NATO plan for this year. This is not the last one – there will be maneuvers in Ukraine. The whole complex of exercises and activities to build up military power shows that NATO members, the United [...]