US deploys 3,000 troops in Ukraine standoff

The United States yesterday deployed several thousand troops to bolster Nato forces in eastern Europe, as the leaders of France and Germany flagged trips to Moscow to address Western fears of an invasion of Ukraine.

With Russia refusing to pull back 100,000 troops poised on Ukraine’s borders, 1,000 US soldiers in Germany are being sent to Romania, and another 2,000 in the United States flown to Germany and Poland.

“As long as (President Vladimir Putin) is acting aggressively, we are going to make sure we reassure our Nato allies in eastern Europe that we’re there,” President Joe Biden said after the deployments were announced.

In response, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said the move would make it harder for a compromise between the two sides, calling the US deployments “destructive steps, which increase military tension and reduce scope for political decision.”

Western powers have been engaged in intense diplomatic efforts — coupled with the threat of sanctions against Putin’s inner circle — to deter what they fear to be a looming invasion of ex-Soviet Ukraine, despite strenuous denials from Moscow.

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced yesterday he would soon travel to Moscow to discuss the crisis, while France’s President Emmanuel Macron said a similar trip may be in the cards — depending on upcoming telephone talks with other world leaders.

No US troops in Ukraine

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby stressed that the US troop movements were to demonstrate commitment to the Nato alliance, and that no American soldiers would be sent to fight in Ukraine, which is not a Nato member.

But that is unlikely to assuage Putin, who has accused the United States and Nato of seeking to “contain” Russia by placing troops and strategic arms on its border.

“Ukraine itself is just a tool to achieve this goal,” Putin said Tuesday in his first major comments in weeks on the crisis.

Putin has demanded guarantees that Ukraine will not join Nato, and has implicitly threatened the former Soviet state with the massive military buildup.

Russia also wants Nato and the United States to foreswear the deployment of missile systems near Russia’s borders and to pull back Nato forces in eastern Europe.

Putin has left the door open to talks, saying he was studying Western proposals set out last month in response to Russia’s demands, and that he hoped that “in the end we will find a solution.”

But in a phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday, he noted “the unwillingness of Nato to adequately respond to the well-founded Russian concerns,” the Kremlin said.

The Kremlin also claimed it had China’s support in the standoff, and that that would be demonstrated when Putin meets President Xi Jinping in Beijing tomorrow.