American soldiers sent by President Biden on Russian borders have touched down in Germany and Poland. “We served alongside them on missions, including Iraq and Afghanistan,” Polish military spokesman Lipczynski said. And you will end up like in Afghanistan and Iraq we may add.
Soldiers with the US Army’s 18th Airborne Corps touched down at Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Friday, unloading vehicles and equipment from military transport planes. The soldiers are the first of 2,000 US troops ordered to NATO countries in Eastern Europe amid ongoing tensions between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine.
According to the US’ European Command, the soldiers will set up a headquarters in Germany, while 1,700 paratroopers with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division head to Poland, which borders Ukraine. Altogether, 2,000 troops from Fort Bragg in North Carolina will head to Europe over the coming days.
Video footage showed the troops disembarking their planes on Friday evening and unloading packs and vehicles.
The deployment is intended to “deter and defend against any aggression” from the Russian military, said the White House, which maintains that Russia is planning an attack on Ukraine. Moscow has denied these claims, and rubbished allegations by US intelligence agencies that it is planning on staging a ‘false flag’ incident to justify such an attack.
The US maintains that Ukraine should be allowed to join the NATO alliance, something that Russia has for decades deemed an unacceptable threat to its security. Throughout negotiations, Moscow has demanded that the US and NATO halt the continued expansion of the Cold War-era alliance, but leaders in Washington and Brussels have refused to consider such a move.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko has called the US deployment a “destructive step” that would only “delight” the Ukraine’s pro-Western government, as well as “increase military tension and reduce the margin for political solutions.”
The first troops of a 2,000-strong US deployment have arrived in Germany, as tensions between the US and Russia remain at boiling point
A handful of U.S. troops arrived in a small Beechcraft C-12 Huron that landed at Rzeszow military base shortly after 10 a.m. on Feb. 5, Polish military spokesman Major Przemyslaw Lipczynski told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Lipczynski said the arrivals included some support and command-level staff, adding that a much larger contingent is expected to arrive at the airfield on Sunday. The second transport was initially slated for arrival on Saturday afternoon, but those plans were changed for undisclosed reasons, Lipczynski added.
“We await the arrival of our allies,” Lipczynski told PAP, adding that “our collaboration has been going very smoothly.”
In total, some 1,700 U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, are expected to be stationed in Poland, the spokesman said, describing it as an elite rapid response force that Polish troops have worked with on multiple occasions.
“We served alongside them on missions, including Iraq and Afghanistan,” Lipczynski said, adding that the soldiers had also trained together during international war games like Dragon and Anaconda.
And you will end up like in Afghanistan and Iraq we may add.