President Biden said Friday that he’s sending US troops to Eastern Europe amid concern about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, Moscow warned that the US and NATO have ignored its demands and left little room for compromise in the crisis.
President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that the West has ignored Russia's key concerns over NATO expansion and the deployment of alliance weapons and forces.
The Pentagon announced Monday that 8,500 US forces were placed on “heightened alert” for potential deployment to Eastern Europe as part of a NATO show of support for smaller members of the military alliance.
The Biden administration also is in the process of sending lethal aid to Ukraine, including five Mi-17 helicopters that formerly belonged to Afghanistan’s military.
And the US State Department this month granted permission to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to donate to Ukraine Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
Biden did not identify which countries will host the US troops, but he’s repeatedly ruled out deployments inside Ukraine, which is not formally a US ally, not a member of NATO.
In related moves, Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and dispatching four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania. Spain also is deploying ships and possibly sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. France is weighing troop deployments to Romania, and the Netherlands is sending two F-35 fighters to Bulgaria.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on the West to remain calm over the tensions with Russia, in spite of the suspicions that it plans to invade his country .
The US says Putin has massed about 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders. The Russian leader is demanding that Ukraine be barred from ever joining NATO, but the alliance has declined to do so.
In 2014, when Biden was vice president, Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula and then annexed the territory from Ukraine following a disputed referendum. Putin’s government also allegedly supports a pair of pro-Russia breakaway states in eastern Ukraine.
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