(PatriotWise.com)- Last Friday, the Pentagon announced that it was sending an additional 3,000 US troops to Poland to join the 1,700 already deployed.
The additional troops from the 82nd Airborne Division began departing from Fort Bragg, North Carolina this week and should be in Poland by the beginning of next week. This is a training and deterrence mission and the troops will not engage in combat in Ukraine.
Additionally, approximately 1,000 US troops based in Germany would be sent to Romania to carry out a similar mission.
The United States already has around 80,000 troops throughout Europe.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed a partial drawdown of Russian forces near the Ukraine border, however, some Western officials are skeptical that the drawdown is an indication that Moscow has ruled out an invasion.
The size of this withdrawal is unclear and Western officials said Tuesday that there is no sign of this supposed drawdown.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Tuesday that they had not seen any de-escalation of ground troops on the Russian side, noting that over the last weeks, the opposite has been the case.
Moscow continues to deny that it plans to invade Ukraine, arguing that it will conduct troop exercises within its own territory as it sees fit.
During a joint press conference after meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin was asked for the reason for the troop drawdown. Putin only described it as a “partial withdrawal of troops from the areas of our exercises,” adding “what is there to comment on?”
Officials in Ukraine said they aren’t taking Moscow at its word about a drawdown. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister told reporters on Tuesday “we’ll believe it when we see it.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the West of manufacturing “manic information madness.” He said Moscow has always said the troops would return to their bases once the exercises ended.
Of the US intelligence report that Putin could give the order to invade as early as this week, Peskov said Putin jokingly asked the Kremlin to find out from the US exactly what time he planned to do this.
