GERMAN Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has accused Nato of “warmongering” with its military exercises on Russia’s borders.

In an interview published in the Bild newspaper’s Sunday edition, Mr Steinmeier said: “The one thing we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation with loud sabre-rattling and warmongering.

“Anyone who thinks a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is wrong.“We would be well advised not to provide a pretext to renew an old confrontation.”

Some 31,000 troops, including 1,000 British, took part in the 10-day Operation Anaconda manoeuvres earlier this month, simulating a Russian invasion of Poland.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said: “The aim of the exercise is clear. We are preparing for an attack.”Russia responded by bolstering forces on its western border.

The provocative exercises came a month before the Nato summit in Warsaw. Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said last month that “there will be more Nato troops in Poland after the Warsaw summit to send a clear signal that an attack on Poland will be considered an attack on the whole alliance.”

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the St Petersburg economic forum that the US and its allies have used the civil war in Ukraine to “justify the existence of the North Atlantic bloc.”

He argued: “They need an external adversary, an external enemy, otherwise what’s the purpose of this organisation? There is no Warsaw Pact, no Soviet Union, so whom is it directed against?”