The Pentagon is confirming that US troops are in Poland in preparation for further conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
“What we’re trying to achieve here is a de-escalation of the tensions and a diplomatic path forward and virtually everything that we’ve done,” said Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby.
“Everything I’ve said up here and quite frankly, everything I’ve not said up he is designed to help us get to a better outcome, a peaceful outcome, a diplomatic outcome. Nobody wants to see, except with the exception of possibly Mr Putin. Any military conflict breaking out in Europe.”
Russia has massed over 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s border and has launched military maneuvers in the region, but says it has no plans to invade its neighbor.
It wants guarantees from the West that NATO not allow Ukraine and other former Soviet nations as members, that the alliance halt weapon deployments there, and that it roll back its forces from Eastern Europe. The U.S. and NATO flatly reject these demands.
Western nations say they will impose their toughest-ever sanctions on Russian businesses and individuals if Moscow invades Ukraine.
Western leaders in recent weeks have engaged in multiple rounds of high-stakes diplomacy in hopes of de-escalating the crisis.
NATO also has stepped up the deployment of troops to bolster the alliance’s eastern flank.
The U.S. has begun to move the 2nd Cavalry Regiment’s stryker squadron from Vilseck, Germany, to Romania, which borders Ukraine. U.S. officials have said they would send about 1,000 NATO troops.
About 1,700 U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division are going to Poland and about half have now arrived, with more expected to flow in during the coming days, Kirby said.
U.S. consular services in Poland are preparing for any surge of Americans living in Ukraine who may decide to flee if Russia invades. U.S. troops deployed to Poland have developed contingency plans to assist Americans fleeing Ukraine through Poland in case of a Russian attack, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment.
The State Department continues to urge Americans in Ukraine, including nonessential U.S. Embassy staff, to leave now.
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east of the country. The fighting between Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed over 14,000 people.
Talks on the separatist conflict will take place Thursday, when foreign policy advisers from Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine – the so-called Normandy format – will meet in Berlin.
France and Germany helped broker a peace deal, known as the Minsk agreements, that ended large-scale fighting in eastern Ukraine. The deal, however, has failed to bring a political settlement of the conflict, and efforts to resolve it have stalled. The Kremlin has accused Kyiv of sabotaging the deal, and Ukrainian officials in recent weeks said that implementing it would hurt Ukraine.
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