DEVIS MARTUSEVICIUS watched with more than a tinge of pride, and relief, as the four Belgian F16s roared into his airbase in Lithuania.

During the Cold War, this vast expanse of pockmarked runways and tumbledown bunkers near the town of Siauliai, about 125 miles (200km) northwest of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, was a launchpad for 100 Soviet fighters and reconnaissance aircraft to fly missions around the borders of Western Europe.

They deserted the base after Lithuania regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, leaving the tiny Baltic state to build its air force from scratch.

When Major Martusevicius joined, it was “one office with a couple of men sitting at a table”. Its first aircraft were a dozen civilian biplanes.

Last month, the Belgian F16s began to use his base to police the skies over Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — the three Baltic states that joined Nato on April 2 with four former communist countries in Eastern Europe. With the F16s came 60 Nato ground staff, including navigation experts from Britain, who make sure that the fighters are ready to scramble within 15 minutes of an incursion. “They make our lives safer, ” Major Martusevicius told The Times. “Whoever violates our airspace, there have to be assets to defend against them.”

For Lithuania, joining Nato drew a line under its Soviet past and cemented its integration with the West, to be strengthened further when it enters the European Union on May 1. For Russia, it has revived old fears about military encirclement and fanned the flames of nationalism.

The Cold War may be over, but Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Defence Minister, gave warning this week of a “cold peace” if its concerns were not addressed. “The alliance is gaining greater ability to control and monitor Russian territory,” Mr Ivanov wrote in an editorial. “We cannot turn a blind eye as Nato’s air and military bases get much closer to cities and defence complexes in European Russia.”

To underline his warning, Russian warships practised amphibious landings near the shores of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia this week. At the same time, the Russian Air Force held joint drills with Ukraine and Belarus. The exercises coincided with the first visit to Moscow by Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the new Nato Secretary-General. He tried to mend fences, saying that Nato’s expansion was directed at international terrorism, not Russia: “The threats we face today recognise no borders, and that is why we must leave the competition of the past years behind to co-operate in order to react to them efficiently.”

Yet a poll by Ekho Moskvy radio showed that 71 per cent of listeners saw Nato expansion as a threat. President Putin, a former KGB spy, also sounded sceptical after his first meeting with the Nato chief.

Mr Putin said: “Life has shown that this mechanical expansion does not make it possible to counter effectively the threats we face today. This expansion could not have prevented the terrorist acts in Madrid, for example, or helped to resolve the situation in Afghanistan.”

Moscow’s hawkish position is partly based on practical military concerns. The Belgian F16s are now within 100 miles (160km) of Mr Putin’s home city of St Petersburg and close enough to spy on Russia’s borders. Four new Nato members — the Baltic states and Slovenia — have not signed the amended treaty on conventional forces in Europe, which limits the number of troops and weapons deployed in various parts of the Continent. Moscow worries that Nato could put unlimited armaments in non-signatory nations. Behind the rhetoric, there is some co-operation. The two sides work together through a joint council and plan an Armed Forces co-operation pact. But analysts give warning that further progress could be hampered by the increasing influence of hardline Russian nationalists.

Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Rodina faction, said: “Under no circumstances should Russia enter into treaty obligations with Nato that would bind it hand and foot, but should rather get on with strengthening its own defence shield.” Anti-Nato sentiment was fuelled by ethnic clashes in Kosovo last month. Many Russians think that Nato is not doing enough to protect Kosovo’s Serbs — fellow Orthodox Slavs.

Aleksei Malashenko, of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, said: “Nato’s expansion is clearly harmful for Russia. It is not because Nato troops will be deployed at its borders, but because it gives rise to radical Russian nationalists.”

Whether the Russians — or local people — like it or not, Nato is here to stay. “If those Soviet generals could see what was happening at the base, they would be turning in their graves,” a Lithuanian Defence Ministry official said.

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