CAMPAIGNERS are demanding that Nato cancel a “dangerous and irresponsible” mass military exercise involving thousands of troops on Russia’s borders due to the coronavirus threat.

Stop the War has urged the government to pull British troops out of the US-led Defender Europe 20 exercise, the biggest deployment of US soldiers on the continent for 25 years.

The Pentagon announced on Monday that the operation would be scaled back in “size and scope” in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.