Moscow has dismissed NATO's accusation that Russia poses a threat to the West, even calling it "absurd." The Kremlin says it hopes common sense will prevail at the NATO summit in Warsaw.
When NATO accused Russia of posing a security threat, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the alliance was looking in the wrong direction.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's Spokesman, "It is absurd to talk about any threat coming from Russia at a time when dozens of people are dying in the center of Europe and when hundreds of people are dying in the Middle East daily. You have to be an absolutely short-sighted organisation to twist things in that way."
At this year's NATO Summit in Warsaw, US President Barack Obama announced the US would deploy a thousand more troops to Poland.
That's in addition to the multinational battalions the alliance plans to send to the Baltic states, too.
Poland and the Baltic states say they want a heightened NATO presence in their countries to prevent a repeat of what happened in Ukraine.
The annexation of Crimea happened in a matter of days. Since then, it has kept Russia's neighbors on the edge, nervous about Vladimir Putin's next move.
This, and NATO's large-scaled military exercise in Poland, has angered Moscow. The Kremlin says NATO is getting too close to Russia's borders.
In January, Russia announced it would create three new divisions and bring five extra strategic nuclear missile regiments - all to counter a perceived threat from NATO.
And earlier this week, Russian troops held military exercises in the country's southern region of Volgograd, in a reminder of Russia's efforts to bolster military readiness.
"The Russian military is using these demonstrations of Western unity - increased troop deployment, increased defense spending - to lobby for more defense spending and for more troops deployments on the Russian side. So that's a win-win situation for military people on both sides of the divide," said Pavel Felghengauer, military analyst from Novaya Gazeta.
Although NATO suspended cooperation with Russia over the annexation of Crimea. Moscow has agreed to a Russia-NATO council next week as both sides seek to avoid a military confrontation.
