A Pentagon spokesman said Russia had no plans to reduce tensions by announcing that 8,500 US troops were ready to be sent to Europe to help Ukraine.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency International Group, the U.S. military on Monday put about 8,500 troops on standby to potentially deploy in Europe if needed.
Reuters reported: “While this decision did not strengthen US support for Ukraine, which is not part of the NATO alliance, it underscored NATO’s growing readiness for what Washington and Kiev believes Russia’s efforts to mobilize its forces for a possible invasion of Ukraine.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday evening that most of the 8,500 US troops have been instructed to be ready to deploy to join NATO’s Rapid Reaction Force if called upon by NATO.
Kirby told a news conference at the Pentagon that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also wanted an unspecified number of troops to be “prepared for any other possibility.”
According to the report, he continued: “What is happening now is that it is preparing them in a shorter range. We are not talking about deployment orders today.”
A Pentagon spokesman added: “Russia can easily reduce the crisis by withdrawing its forces. But that did not happen. It is clear that the Russians have no intention of reducing tensions at this time.”
According to Reuters, the U.S. forces, which received orders for deployment on Monday, included additional combat brigade teams, logistics personnel, medical support, air support, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.
Read more: Sending a special team of British troops to Ukraine to confront Russia: https://www.paksahafat.com/en/?p=18809
NATO currently has about 4,000 troops in multinational battalions in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland; supported by tanks, air defense and intelligence and surveillance units.
Since last month, the American media has been spying on the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, escalating tensions in Eastern Europe. Â Russia has strongly denied the allegations, but insisted that continued artillery fire by Ukrainian forces against the Russian-speaking Autonomous Region would provoke a Moscow backlash.
In order to reduce tensions over Ukraine, Moscow has made proposals to ensure Western security for Russia, including not extending the NATO military alliance to its borders and withdrawing NATO troops from the region. Last week, Russia’s envoy met with US and NATO counterparts to discuss the proposals, but the West ultimately rejected them.
Earlier, a senior US State Department official said that escalating tensions over Ukraine were not inevitable, adding that Washington was once again urging Moscow to take steps to defuse tensions.