The Pentagon confirmed this Wednesday the shipment of 3,000 united states soldiers to allied countries in the east of Europe amid tension with Russia over Ukraine.
(Read here: Filtered US response to Russia’s demands not to invade Ukraine)
US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told a news conference that 1,000 military personnel will be deployed to Romania, while another 2,000 will be sent to Poland and Germany.
(Also: Explained in seven minutes: what is the Ukraine war about?)
“The current situation demands that we strengthen the deterrent and defensive posture on NATO’s eastern flank,” Kirby stressed.
In the case of Romania, the United States will relocate 1,000 soldiers currently stationed in Germany to Romanian territory “in the coming days.” “It’s a strike squad and cavalry unit that are designed to deploy at short notice and move quickly once they’re in place,” the spokesman said, adding that those troops will add to the 900 the US currently has. in Romania.
In parallel, some 2,000 soldiers, who are now on US soil, will travel to Europe in the coming days: On the one hand, there will be members of the 82nd Airborne Division, which will deploy an infantry combat team in Poland.
In response to a question from a journalist, Kirby clarified that most of those 2,000 troops will go to Poland. On the other hand, the 18th Airborne Corps will send a task force to Germany.
This group “is trained and equipped for a series of missions to deter aggression and reaffirm our commitment to allies,” said Kirby, who stressed that these will be “temporary” missions and not permanent, and that they will not go to fight to Ukraine.
The Pentagon recalled that apart from these US forces, it maintains 8,500 soldiers in its territory on “high alert”, that they are ready to be mobilized, but that they are not going to do so at the moment.
Kirby also specified that the troops sent to Romania will be under US command, without specifying whether those going to Poland and Germany will be under that command or that of NATO.
He recalled that the 8,500 on “high alert” in the US would be deployed under the Atlantic Alliance Response Force. Tension has skyrocketed in the last month due to the concentration of more than 100,000 Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly repeated that it does not want a war with Kiev and that it does not threaten Ukraine.
Paris warns that the conditions for a Russian intervention in Ukraine are met
The French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, warned on Wednesday that “all the conditions are in place for there to be a Russian intervention” in Ukraine, although
Paris wants to continue believing in the words of Vladimir Putin and maintains that the priority is to work on relaxation.
“The situation is very serious,” Le Drian acknowledged in an interview with the France 2 channel, in which he made reference to the concentration of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine and the joint maneuvers that Moscow and Minsk have organized in Belarus.
Taking these elements into account, there is, in his opinion, “a clear and imminent danger” of a Russian invasion. But at the same time he explained that “we do not have any information on President Putin’s willingness to take action. That is why it is still time to prioritize de-escalation.”
Putin and Xi will underline their ‘common vision’ of security
The government of Russia claimed this Wednesday the support of China to his security demands against the West, before a meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping at the opening of the Olympic Games.
The Russian president will meet with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the opening Friday of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
According to Moscow, the two leaders plan to signal their diplomatic convergence, as they have grown closer as their relations with the United States deteriorate. “A joint declaration on entering international relations into a new era has been prepared,” said Yuri Ushakov, a diplomatic adviser to the Russian president.
“In it we will find the common vision of Russia and China (…) especially on security issues,” he added. Ushakov assured that China supports Russia’s claims “in terms of security”, a list of demands addressed to the United States and NATO to ease tensions over Ukraine and that Westerners have rejected.
At the end of January, the Chinese government had called to “take seriously” those demands.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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