President Biden Sends Nearly 3,000 US Troops To Eastern Europe To Anticipate Russia, Stationed In Two Countries

JAKARTA - The United States will send nearly 3,000 additional troops to Poland and Romania to strengthen NATO ally Eastern Europe, in the face of what Washington describes as a Russian threat to attack Ukraine, US officials said Wednesday.

Moscow has amassed more than 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border. However, they deny plans to attack their neighbor but say they could take unspecified military action if their demands are not met, including a pledge by NATO to never recognize Kyiv.

The Stryker Squadron of about 1,000 US personnel. service members based in Vilseck, Germany will be sent to Romania, the Pentagon said. Meanwhile, about 1,700 service members, mainly from the 82nd Airborne Division, will be deployed from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Poland. Another three hundred service members will move from Fort Bragg to Germany.

The goal, said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, is to send a strong signal to President Vladimir Putin and frankly to the world, NATO is important to the United States and important to our allies."

"We know he is also angry with NATO, about NATO. He has made no secret of it. We made it clear that we will be ready to defend our NATO allies, if that happens. Hopefully, that doesn't happen," he quoted Reuters as saying on February 3.

Meanwhile, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said the deployment of US troops was a sign of strong solidarity. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed this, saying the alliance's response to Russia was defensive and proportionate.

Efforts to reach a diplomatic solution have faltered, with Western powers describing Russia's key demands as a non-starter and Moscow showing no sign of withdrawing.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he would discuss the crisis with the US. President Joe Biden in the coming hours and did not rule out traveling to Russia to meet with President Putin. The priority is to avoid escalating tensions, President Macron said.

The day before, President Putin laid out a world view in which Russia was forced to protect itself from US aggression. In his first public comments on the Ukraine crisis this year, he said Washington was trying to lure Moscow into the war, insisting on the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO.

"It is clear now that Russia's fundamental concerns are being ignored," President Putin said on Tuesday.

Describing a scenario in which Ukraine joins NATO and then attacks Russian troops, he asked: "Should we go to war with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought about it? Apparently not."

Meanwhile, Washington has said it will not send troops into Ukraine itself to protect it from Russian attacks, but will impose financial sanctions on Moscow and send weapons to help Ukraine defend itself.

To note, Russia has remained Europe's main energy supplier despite being subordinate to the US and the European Union, since annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, dismissing additional sanctions as empty threats.

Washington and its allies have rejected two of Russia's main demands, a ban on Ukraine from joining NATO, and withdrawing troops from Eastern European countries that joined the alliance after the end of the Cold War.