LAST UPDATE | 2 Feb 2022
US PRESIDENT JOE Biden is sending troops to fortify NATO forces in eastern Europe in response to rising tensions over Ukraine.
Around 2,000 troops will be sent from Fort Bragg, North Carolina to Poland and Germany, while another 1,000 already in Germany will be moved to Romania.
The move was confirmed by an administration official, who said: “At the president’s direction and following Secretary [Lloyd] Austin’s recommendation, the Department of Defense will reposition certain Europe-based units further east, forward deploy additional US-based units to Europe, and maintain the heightened state of readiness of response forces to meet these commitments.”
“These forces are not going to fight in Ukraine. They are not permanent moves. They respond to current conditions,” the official added.
Biden had previously said that NATO forces in eastern Europe would be bolstered but had not indicated the size of the deployment.
Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said the scale of the deployment is “very much in keeping with the president’s comments”.
He added that the troop movements will take place “in the coming days” and that more troops could be moved eastwards “it that’s desired and needed”.
“The steps I’m talking about today, could very well be preliminary steps to future ones that we might take,” he said, adding that other countries are involved:
It’s worth reminding that Romania as a sovereign state has their own military and a very capable one at that. It’s not just the United States sending a Stryker squadron, the French are going to be sending additional troops, I’ll let them speaking to what they’re going to do and on what timeline and and how much. As I also said in my opening statement, other countries are likewise moving forward to provide bolstering capabilities to NATO allies on the eastern flank.
Arms control
The deployment comes despite efforts to ease tension in Europe, with US and NATO allies reportedly offering Moscow arms control and trust-building measures to defuse the threat of a new Russian offensive against Ukraine.
The proposals, set out in letters by NATO and the United States last month in response to Russian demands, remain firm on insisting that Ukraine and any other sovereign country has a right to apply to join the alliance, according to documents published by El Pais today.
But the reported US response — posted to the Spanish daily’s website — suggests “reciprocal commitments by both the United States and Russia to refrain from deploying offensive ground-launched missile systems and permanent forces with a combat mission in the territory of Ukraine”.
Both the US and NATO documents urge Russia to restore diplomatic ties with the alliance and to renew and renegotiate nuclear missile control treaties with the United States.
Moscow is urged to re-engage with the NATO-Russia council, a diplomatic body “offering dialogue and partnership in place of conflict and distrust.”
A NATO official refused to confirm the text, saying: “We never comment on alleged leaks.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was aware of the report but added: “We didn’t publish anything, and I don’t want to comment on this.”
President Vladimir Putin’s government has deployed a huge force — more than 100,000 strong — on its territory near the Ukraine border and in Crimea, a Ukrainian region that Russia annexed in 2014.
The Kremlin has demanded that NATO guarantee that Kiev never be allowed to join NATO and that the alliance withdraw forces from eastern member states that were Soviet allies or republics during the Cold War.
The western allies have dismissed calls to slam shut NATO’s door, but the leaked letters call for “meaningful arms control discussions and dialogue with Russia on mutual transparency and confidence-building measures.”
“No other partner has been offered a comparable relationship or a similar institutional framework,” the allies said of the NATO-Russia council, in the letter released by El Pais.
“Yet Russia has broken the trust at the core of our cooperation and challenged the fundamental principles of the global and Euro-Atlantic security architecture,” it says.
The US document stresses: “We are ready to consider arrangements or agreements with Russia on issues of bilateral concern, to include written, signed instruments, to address our respective security concerns.”
It suggests renewing the US-Russian Strategic Stability Dialogue on arms control agreements to “limit ground-based intermediate and shorter-range missiles and their launchers”.
But it repeats Washington’s warning that Russia is already in breach of the now suspended 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019, accusing Moscow of deploying a banned type of missile.
And it warns: “Further Russian increases in force posture or further aggression against Ukraine will force the United States and our Allies to strengthen our defensive posture.”
Putin has accused the US of trying to draw Russia into a war in Ukraine and ignoring its security concerns.
Speaking after a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Moscow yesterday, Putin said the Kremlin was studying a response from Washington and NATO to Russia’s security demands, but that it had been far from adequate.
“It is already clear that fundamental Russian concerns ended up being ignored,” Putin told reporters.
© AFP 2022 with reporting by Rónán Duffy and Press Association
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