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Why did NATO's flank and Ireland's waters converge?
Summary
Two announcements on 29 January 2022 showed how the Russia–NATO standoff reached both eastern Europe and the Atlantic.
What did the pressure on Ukraine's borders look like from western capitals on 31 January 2022? Two announcements made two days earlier, on 29 January, offered part of the answer: one concerned troops in Romania, the other naval exercises off Ireland.
Reinforcing the eastern flank
On 29 January, France announced that it would deploy "several hundred" troops to Romania to support NATO's eastern flank amid tensions with Russia. The move placed a European contribution directly into the alliance's effort to respond to the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis, and it tied French forces to the defence of a country on the alliance's eastern edge.
A dispute in the Atlantic
The second announcement came from a different direction. Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, said on 29 January that the Russian Minister of Defence had agreed to his request that planned Russian exercises be moved outside the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone.
The exercises had been proposed for 3 to 8 February 2022 in the Atlantic southwest of Ireland. They were to be held in international waters but within Ireland's exclusive economic zone, and were to involve both the Russian Navy and air force. Russia later cancelled the planned exercises at the request of the Irish government.
What the two episodes show
Taken together, the announcements show a crisis that was not confined to Ukraine's frontiers. In one case, a NATO member sent troops to reinforce allies near Russia. In the other, a smaller European state used a direct request to change where Russian forces would train. Both were responses to the same climate of tension, and both were being handled by governments through public announcements as the month ended.
