JAKARTA - Around 12,000 military personnel with supporting weapons from the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have been alerted as tensions escalate on the Ukrainian border.
NATO said on Monday it was putting troops on alert and bolstering eastern Europe with more ships and fighter jets, in what Russia denounced as Western "hysteria" in response to its troop buildup on the Ukrainian border.
The US Department of Defense in Washington said about 8,500 American troops were on standby and awaiting orders to deploy to the region, should Russia attack Ukraine.
Tensions rose after Russia mustered about 100,000 troops to reach its neighbor's border.
Russia denies planning an invasion. But having surrounded Ukraine with troops from the north, east, and south, Moscow now cites the Western response as evidence that Russia is the target, not the instigator, of aggression.
President Joe Biden, pushing for transatlantic unity, held an 80-minute secure video call with European leaders Monday from the White House Situation Room to discuss the Ukraine crisis, the White House said.
Welcoming a series of deployments announced by alliance members in recent days, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg earlier said NATO would take "all necessary actions."
"We will always respond to any damage to our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defenses," Stoltenberg said in a statement.
He told a news conference the increased presence in NATO's eastern wing could include the deployment of additional combat groups.
"We are also considering having a war group in the southeast of the alliance," Stoltenberg said.
So far, NATO has around 4,000 troops in multinational battalions in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland supported by tank, air defense, and intelligence and surveillance units.
US officials say the Pentagon is finalizing efforts to identify specific units that could be deployed to NATO's eastern flank.
One official said up to 5,000 people could be deployed, while a NATO diplomat said Washington was considering gradually transferring some of the troops stationed in western Europe to eastern Europe in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Denmark, Spain, France, and the Netherlands are all planning or considering sending troops, aircraft, or ships to eastern Europe, NATO said. It is known, Ukraine shares borders with four NATO countries namely, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
A Polish official said Warsaw would withdraw the line of sending troops to Ukraine.
As tensions escalated, Britain said it was pulling some of its staff and dependents from its embassy in Ukraine, a day after the United States said it ordered family members of diplomats to leave. US diplomats were allowed to leave voluntarily.
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In response to the current situation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the West of being "hysterical" and of spreading information "mixed with lies".
"Regarding specific actions, we see statements by the North Atlantic Alliance about strengthening, withdrawing forces and resources to the east side. All this leads to the fact that tensions are increasing," Peskov explained.
"This did not happen because of what we, Russia, did. This all happened because of what NATO and the US did and because of the information they spread," he said.
Separately, a Russian delegation source said political advisers from Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany would meet in Paris on Wednesday to discuss resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where some 15,000 people have been killed since 2014. Previous efforts failed to produce any breakthroughs.
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