The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has given the green light to the deployment of some 3,000 additional troops in Eastern Europe in the coming days in response to military pressure from Russia on the border with Ukraine, sources reported on Wednesday. the administration.
The leader of the United States, who follows the recommendations of the Pentagon, already advanced on Friday that the decision would be effective shortly and that it would not affect a large number of troops.
A total of 2,000 soldiers come from the large Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina and will be deployed to Poland and Germany, while another thousand currently stationed in a squad from Germany will travel to Romania, a country on the eastern flank of the NATO territory closest to Russia.
The US Department of Defense will give details of the operation this Wednesday at a press conference.
In parallel, the United States also maintains 8,500 soldiers in an "alert" situation to mobilize them in case of need and Biden said on Friday that he planned to send troops "in the short term" to Eastern Europe and the NATO countries (Ukraine is not one of them).
The announcement comes as diplomatic contacts between Russia and NATO allies continue without progress.
The Kremlin assures that it does not intend to invade Ukraine, but it maintains more than 100,000 soldiers on the border of the former Soviet republic and the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 is a key precedent in Western fears.
To reduce the pressure on the former Soviet republic, Moscow demands guarantees from the Alliance that it will not expand in Eastern Europe and, specifically, that it will not incorporate Ukraine.
Follow all the international information on
and
, or in
our weekly newsletter
.