MOSCOW: Nato's upcoming enlargement is a bitter pill to swallow for Russia, a former superpower which once headed the Warsaw Pact alliance that opposed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

At the April 2 enlargement ceremony, Nato will welcome seven former Communist bloc countries into the fold, including the former Soviet republics in the Baltics, bringing the alliance's borders to Russia's doorstep. And that, many in Moscow gloomily predict, could be just the beginning.

"This is not the first and obviously not the last wave," Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov said last week. Making the best of a bad situation, Moscow has said its policy would be "not to interfere in the alliance's enlargement," in the words of Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov last February.

"But we also have our rights and we intend to use them," including reinforcing Russian troops in the northwest of the country, next to the Baltics, he said.

Although Nato has not said it would station supplementary troops in the Baltic countries, the mere possibility has rendered Russian military leaders nervous.

"It is the military's role to prepare for the worst scenario, even if it appears absurd politically," said Ivan Safranchuk, of the Russian Defence Information Center.

Russia has described the Baltics as a "gray zone," since the three countries have not signed the Conventional Weapons in Europe Treaty, which puts limits on the amount of military materiel.

But for Alexander Goltz, a military commentator for the Zhurnal weekly magazine, Russia's military leadership is using these issues as a scarecrow, to justify the upkeep of lethargic and bloated armed forces amid outdated military doctrines.

"The army as it stands today supports our generals and they are interested in keeping it that way. That's why they insist on an idea of a global adversary," Goltz said. Russia's hawkish defence minister has become the nation's quasi spokesman on the issue.

"If Nato continues to keep to its offensive military doctrine, then Russia's military planning will be adequately reevaluated," he was quoted saying on Thursday. -AFP