Around 2,000 soldiers from the US armed forces come from an airborne division in North Carolina.
(Photo: imago images/ZUMA Wire)
Berlin, NY US President Joe Biden is reacting to the ongoing Ukraine crisis and is sending troops to Europe: he wants to send around 2,000 soldiers from the US to Germany and Poland. In turn, 1,000 US soldiers are to be transferred from Germany to Romania.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby spoke on Wednesday of an “unmistakable signal” to the world that the United States is now relocating thousands of additional soldiers to NATO’s eastern border. In doing so, the United States showed that they stood by their allies. If necessary, there could be further troop movements in the future.
Any action against a NATO state would trigger the defense alliance’s duty of assistance, Kirby emphasized. “We make it clear that we will be ready to defend our NATO allies should that happen. Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Kirby said. The spokesman added that the deployment of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border is currently continuing unchanged, “even for the past 24 hours”.
However, the US President and other members of the administration have made it clear on numerous occasions that no US soldiers will be sent to Ukraine for combat purposes. But the forces could support the allies with logistics, medical supplies and drone surveillance flights, according to the Pentagon.
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The troop deployments are expected in the next few days, Kirby said. These are not permanent transfers.
So far, the US government has mainly threatened massive economic sanctions against Russia. These would also affect the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. A decision could be made in Congress this week that would also affect Germany.
Relations between Berlin and Washington have recently been extremely tense, mainly because of Germany’s hesitant attitude to the Ukraine crisis. The Americans are particularly critical of the Baltic Sea pipeline and Germany’s dependence on Russian gas. Against this background, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is expected in the White House on February 7th.
Moscow has addressed a catalog of demands to NATO and the USA
Tens of thousands of US soldiers are regularly stationed in Europe, including around 35,000 in Germany, around 4,000 in Poland and 900 in Romania.
Russia is currently trying to persuade NATO to rule out further eastward expansion and, in particular, the admission of Ukraine. It also calls for a withdrawal of NATO troops from eastern alliance states. Moscow has addressed a corresponding list of demands to NATO and the USA. Both reject these demands, but have offered a dialogue in writing.
The previous evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin had sharply rejected Ukraine’s possible NATO membership and an advance of the Western alliance: “Should we then go to war with NATO?” Putin asked in the Kremlin after a meeting with the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban. Ukraine, Putin claimed, wants to retake Crimea with NATO support. The Black Sea Peninsula was annexed by Russia in 2104.
“This is sovereign Russian territory, the matter is closed for us,” Putin said, adding that in the event of such an operation, Russia would have to enter a war with NATO, which no one thought of. In any case, “the West cheated Russia”.
With the additional troops, the US President is primarily sending a signal in the direction of Moscow.
(Photo: AP)
When the Eastern bloc collapsed, Moscow was promised that “NATO would not move an inch closer to us.” Western negotiating circles in the 1990s, however, still deny such a commitment.
Poland’s government has been pushing in Washington for months for the US to increase its troops in the largest eastern European EU member state. So far, there are no permanently stationed NATO troops in either Poland or the Baltic States, but only up to 1,000 soldiers from allied countries, who are regularly exchanged. The Bundeswehr has the leading role in Lithuania.
Parallel to the US troop transfers to Poland, the Polish government is building a new trilateral alliance with Great Britain. “We are creating a new format of political cooperation in Europe between Ukraine, Great Britain and Poland,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stressed on Twitter that the new alliance is of great importance for his country: “We cannot wait for security and prosperity to lie somewhere in the future when we become a member of the EU and NATO . We need them today.” While Russia wants a guarantee from the West that Ukraine will never become a NATO member, all NATO states emphasize that this is not a question at the moment.
More: Putin warns of war danger if Ukraine joins NATO