The United States has decided to send 500 more soldiers to Europe to reinforce NATO security, the Pentagon announced on Monday, estimating that Russia has sent almost all the troops concentrated on the border with this country into Ukraine.
Source: AFP
The Pentagon has already deployed an additional 12,000 military personnel to Europe this year.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered over the weekend the deployment of “an additional 500 US military personnel to locations in Europe to augment forces already there,” a Defense Department official told reporters.
“These additional forces will be positioned to respond to the current security context” following the Russian invasion of Ukraine “and to strengthen NATO’s defensive and deterrent capabilities, particularly on the eastern flank,” he explained.
US President Joe Biden has clearly said that all these troops sent to Europe are not intended to go to Ukraine or participate in the war in this country. These are preventive deployments in countries of the Atlantic Alliance (NATO), of which Kiev is not a member.
The US Department of Defense official estimates that Russian President Vladimir Putin has brought into Ukraine “almost 100% of his combat forces” concentrated in recent months on the Russian-Ukrainian border, that is, more than 150,000 soldiers, “according to US estimates.”
“He has sent almost all of them into the interior” of the attacked country, explained this source, who affirms that the bombardments against several cities have intensified and target “civilian objectives, civil infrastructure, residential areas.”
Without going so far as to clearly accuse Moscow of deliberately attacking civilians, he considered that these attacks are being carried out “more and more frequently and on an ever-increasing scale”.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky says the Russians are preparing to attack Odessa, a strategic port city on the Black Sea.
“We believe that the Russians want to take Odessa,” said the Pentagon official, who does not rule out a possible amphibious attack supported by ground troops. But the United States “right now has no indication of a possible move” on this front, he added.
