MOSCOW (Sputnik) - NATO has transformed its eastern flank from having no combat-ready troops in place in 2014 to tens of thousands now, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.
"We have, over these ten years [since 2014 that he took over], undergone the biggest transformation in a generation. We have strengthened our defenses, from having zero to tens of thousands combat-ready NATO soldiers on our eastern flank, from thousands to half a million troops on high readiness and from 3 to 23 allies spending at least 2% of GDP on defense," Stoltenberg said during a session named "Reflections on a Challenging Decade," hosted by the German Marshal fund in Brussels.