US to deploy some 1,000 soldiers to Poland as part of NATO response

The United States plans to deploy around 1,000 soldiers to Poland as part of an effort to step up NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe, President Barack Obama says.

“I can announce that the US will be the lead nation for the NATO presence here in Poland,” he says after meeting Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw, ahead of a summit of the military alliance’s leaders.

“That means the US will deploy a battalion, roughly 1,000 American soldiers, here in Poland on a rotational basis to serve shoulder to shoulder with Polish soldiers,” he adds.

The US also plans to headquarter in Poland one of its armored brigades, which is rotating through Europe, Obama says.

Britain will take the lead in Estonia, announcing on Friday that it will provide 500 troops there.

Germany will head the battalion in Lithuania, while Canada is expected to lead in Latvia.

Other NATO nations will also contribute troops, with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen announcing that his country will send up to 200 soldiers to Estonia.

The deployment is irking Moscow, which has repeatedly warned that an eastward NATO expansion threatens its national security. The Kremlin on Friday slammed the Western military alliance for being short-sighted and having a misguided focus on threats from Russia.

“If they need to … stir up anti-Russian hysteria and Russophobia, then based on that emotion-evoking backdrop deploy air and ground forces close to Russia’s borders, it is unlikely that we can find some reason for collaboration,” the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in comments carried by the Interfax news agency.

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