US troops to deploy to Eastern Europe amid Ukraine crisis

By Natasha Bertrand, Barbara Starr and Jeremy Herb, CNN

President Joe Biden has formally approved the deployment of 3,000 US troops to Poland, Germany and Romania, the Pentagon announced Wednesday, in a move to bolster NATO countries in Eastern Europe with tens of thousands of Russian troops amassed along Ukraine’s border.

The deployments to Eastern Europe, which were first reported by CNN, are a show of support to NATO allies feeling threatened by Russia’s military moves near Ukraine and the threat of an invasion, US officials said.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the deployments included roughly 2,000 troops that would deploy from the United States to Poland and Germany. In addition, approximately 1,000 troops currently based in Germany were moving to Romania.

Kirby said that the moves, which would happen in the coming days, were not permanent and emphasized, “These forces are not going to fight in Ukraine.”

The move is the most significant sign to date that the US is preparing for the prospect of Russian President Vladimir Putin launching an invasion of Ukraine, as Russia has shown no signs of de-escalating after several rounds of diplomatic talks with the US and NATO.

Biden signed off on the additional troops following a meeting on Tuesday morning at the White House with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, an official said.

Kirby stressed these additional troop movements don’t mean the US believes Putin has decided to invade Ukraine or any other country, but “if he does invade Ukraine, obviously there’s going to be consequences for that.”

“We want to make sure that he knows any move on NATO is going to be resisted, and it’s going to trigger Article Five, and we’re going to be committed to the defense of our allies,” Kirby said.

The US has put 8,500 troops in the US on heightened alert in case a NATO Response Force is called up and US forces are needed quickly. But the US and NATO have tens of thousands of other troops already in Europe to draw on for any additional deployments to Eastern European allies.

Kirby said that the troops being deployed were separate from the 8,500 US troops on heightened alert. The Pentagon is “not ruling out the possibility that there will be more” US troop movements in the coming days, Kirby said.

The US deployment to Poland consists of about 1,700 troops from an 82nd Airborne Division infantry brigade combat team based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. There are about 300 service members from the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg deploying to Germany. And the US is moving a stryker squadron of about 1,000 troops from Germany to Romania, Kirby said.

The troops will operate on a bilateral basis with their host countries, since NATO has not yet activated the multinational response force.

CNN reported last week that the US and a handful of allies had been in discussions to deploy thousands more troops to Eastern European NATO countries before any potential Russian invasion of Ukraine as a show of support in the face of Moscow’s ongoing aggression.

Biden also said last Friday that he would be moving the forces “in the near term,” as Russia has continued to build up forces near Ukraine, sparking fears of a renewed invasion even as diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions have continued.

On Wednesday, the Spanish newspaper El Pais published confidential written responses that the United States and NATO sent last week to Russia, which rejected Moscow’s demand to never admit Ukraine into NATO. El Pais published five pages of what it said was a US government document and four pages of what it said was a NATO document, and said both were sent to Russia on January 26.

Kirby confirmed Wednesday the US written response to Russia was authentic, saying that its publication “confirms to the entire world what we have always been saying.”

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CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Ellie Kaufman, Jennifer Hansler and Michael Conte contributed reporting.