Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre said on Wednesday that he viewed Russia’s military buildup along the Ukrainian border as a sign of President Vladimir Putin’s weakness.

“Politically, for me, it is a sign of weakness in a way that you have to express your views and your interest by that kind of military demonstration,” the Norwegian leader observed in an interview with the Associated Press. “It is at the table when you deal with the issues that matter to people.”

Støre’s remarks come amid the backdrop of a dramatic Russian military buildup near the country’s western border with Ukraine. More than 100,000 Russian troops have been positioned in the Crimean peninsula, a former territory of Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and opposite Ukraine’s contested Donbass region, where two separatist movements based in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk have fought for independence from the central government in Kiev.

Earlier in the week, Russian troops also deployed to Belarus, raising concerns that the Kremlin could launch an invasion of Ukraine from three directions.

Moscow has denied planning to invade Ukraine. However, it has used its troop buildup to draw attention to its demand that NATO formally ends its accession process and refuse to admit additional nations. NATO has thus far refused this demand, and talks to find an alternative resolution to the crisis are ongoing.

Norway is a founding member of NATO, having joined the alliance at its creation in 1949. At its outset, Norway was the only NATO member to directly border the Soviet Union, modern Russia’s predecessor state. Today, Poland and the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—also share a land border with Russia.

In his remarks to the AP, Støre suggested that the current crisis originated from a failure of communication between Russia and the West. He argued that existing tensions between the two sides could be solved with further diplomacy.

Støre said that the current situation reflects “animosity and destructive relations among countries that need to engage."

Støre also claimed that in the future, the alliance should “be firm, predictable, and clear on principles,” indicating that creating and adhering to a firm doctrine would prevent Moscow from pursuing actions intended to gauge the West’s response, such as the troop buildup.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.