OREANDA-NEWS. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance is not a party to the conflict on the territory of Ukraine, TASS reports.

The representative of the Euro-Atlantic alliance stressed that NATO does not seek war with the Russian Federation, but will increase its presence at its borders.

“We need to make sure that there are no misunderstandings that we are protecting allies. Therefore, we have strengthened our presence in the eastern part of the alliance,” Stoltenberg said.

Earlier, the NATO Secretary General said that at the moment he sees no reason to increase the level of readiness of the "nuclear forces" of the alliance.

He noted that the alliance will always do everything necessary to protect and defend allies, but said that NATO does not see the need to change the level of readiness of nuclear forces.

Earlier, the British Ministry of Defense called unnecessary and alarmist speculation about Russia's nuclear weapons.

Also, the head of the press service of the US State Department, Ned Price, said that Washington would not increase the level of combat readiness of nuclear forces, because it does not seek conflict with Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Sunday, February 27, ordered the transfer of the Russian deterrence forces to a special alert mode. According to the head of state, such a decision is a response to the aggressive statements of NATO's top leaders. Relations between Russia and the West deteriorated sharply after February 24, when a special operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine began.