Jonathan Eyal The US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) military alliance has vowed to continue with its biggest manoeuvres in decades off the coast of Norway despite the fact that Russia announced that, as of yesterday, it will hold missile firing tests from its ships in precisely the same region of northern Europe.

"We will conduct our exercise as planned, and I don't expect that that will cause any serious problems," Nato's secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg told reporters observing the troop movements.