The scale of NATO’s Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises marks the alliance’s “irreversible return” to Cold War maneuvers, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleksandr Hrushko told the RIA news agency, Reuters reports.

NATO announced on Thursday that it is launching its largest exercise since the Cold War, involving some 90,000 troops, in which they will practice how US forces can reinforce European allies in countries bordering Russia on the alliance’s eastern flank if a conflict with an “almost equal” opponent, writes News.ro.

“These exercises are another element of the hybrid war unleashed by the West against Russia,” Hrushko told RIA.

“Exercises of this magnitude mark NATO’s final and irreversible return to Cold War maneuvers, where military planning, resources and infrastructure are being prepared for a confrontation with Russia.”

NATO does not mention Russia by name in its announcement of the exercise, but its main strategic document identifies Russia as the most significant and direct threat to the security of NATO members.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 in what Kyiv and its Western allies say was an unprovoked imperial land grab. Since then, Moscow and its foreign minister, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, have often accused the “collective West” of waging a “hybrid war” against Russia, supporting Ukraine with financial and military aid.

Steadfast Defender 24, Nato’s most important exercise “in decades”, starts next week and will last several months, involving 90,000 troops from the North Atlantic alliance, aiming to show that they can defend territory up to the border with Russia.