The Russians are going to have a cow’: The US’s latest message to Putin ‘is a really big deal'(Source Yahoo) The US will devote a substantial portion of its defense spending to building up its military presence in Eastern Europe in an effort to deter Russian aggression in the region, Obama administration officials  HYPERLINK “http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/world/europe/us-fortifying-europes-east-to-deter-putin.html?_r=0” \t “_blank” told The New York Times. Countries belonging to the NATO alliance in Central and Eastern Europe will apparently receive heavy weaponry, tanks, and other equipment from the US, which quadrupled its budget from $789 million to more than $3.4 billion for military spending in Europe through 2017. “This is a really big deal, and the Russians are going to have a cow,” Evelyn N. Farkas, the Pentagon’s top policy official on Russia and Ukraine until October, told The Times on Tuesday. “It’s a huge sign of commitment to deterring Russia, and to strengthening our alliance and our partnership with countries like Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.”

The move comes four months after Russia launched an air campaign in Syria to prop up embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a move widely seen as an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure and expand Russia’s influence in the Middle East. Russia is unlikely to react kindly to an expanded NATO military presence along its western flank. In an interview  HYPERLINK “http://www.businessinsider.com/vladimir-putin-interview-bild-obama-russia-us-2016-1” \t “_blank” with the German daily newspaper Bild in January, Putin asserted that Russia’s tensions with the West largely resulted from NATO’s eastward expansion after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin said: “NATO and the USA wanted a complete victory over the Soviet Union. They wanted to sit on the throne in Europe alone.”