Putin speech sees NATO refresh 'Cold War' project

COLD War plans prepared in case of an attack by the Soviet Union are being “refreshed” in light of growing tensions with Russia, it was revealed yesterday.

- Marco Giannangeli

Sources referred to an “infelicitous trajectory” following Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day speech last week, putting Britain and its Nato allies on alert.

Exercises involving a response by the West to an attack on a European country were regularly trialled during the 1980s but fell out of practice after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Now military chiefs and senior civil servants have begun to analyse how much of the original idea could be incorporated into a revised plan, called The Book, to deal with a Russian incursion into Poland.

Last night Gen Sir Richard Barrons, former head of Joint Forces Command, said: “It is a very good idea that these Cold War exercises are properly resurrected, even though their simulated elements may give a misleading impression as to how seamlessly things can be achieved.