U.S. 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.
This is reported by CNN.
According to the agency, the deployments to Eastern Europe are a show of support to NATO allies feeling threatened by Russia's military moves near Ukraine and the threat of an invasion.
The 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 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.
Last week, the US placed 8,500 troops 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 troops will operate on a bilateral basis with their host countries, since NATO has not yet activated the multinational response force.