She emphasized that the plan aims to create a "preemptive attack" near the border with Russia. The comments were in response to information that NATO’s Defender Europe 2020 exercises are planned on the territory of a number of European countries along the western border of Russia.

This will be the largest deployment of US troops in Europe in 25 years. Around 20,000 US soldiers and 17,000 soldiers from other countries are expected to participate in these exercises.