The first group of American soldiers of the NATO armored brigade arrived in Poland. As part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, 250 troops were deployed to the country.
The troops were supposed to arrive in Eastern Europe only at the end of January, but outgoing US President Barack Obama ordered to expedite the transfer and complete it before the inauguration of Donald Trump.
Some of the troops have already arrived at the port of Germany, from where the military will go by rail to Poland. In Germany, several thousand people went to a rally demanding not to send NATO troops into their country. According to the protesters, they want peace with Russia, and such alliance actions could end in a new war.
In addition to Poland and Germany, NATO intends to deploy in January four thousand troops in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, as well as Bulgaria and Hungary.
And we will send dissatisfied cotton cattle to rest in the Crimea!
The network published video recordings demonstrating the unloading of hundreds of tanks from the United States in the German seaport of Bremerhaven. The total number of units of military equipment delivered from America to protect European allies from “Russian aggression” (as the official wording sounds) is 2800 units. The BBC Russian service called this action the largest transfer of US military armored forces to Europe after the end of the Cold War.
Lieutenant General Tim Ray said that the United States will increase the scale and complexity of military exercises in Europe to counter “aggression from Russia.”
“Let me be clear: this is part of our efforts to deter aggression from Russia, to ensure the territorial integrity of our allies and to support freedom, prosperity and peace in Europe,” Rey said in the German port of Bremerhaven, where hundreds of tanks, trucks and other arrived military equipment from the USA.
Together with military equipment, 3,500 US troops of the 4th Infantry Division arrive from Germany from Fort Carson military base in Colorado. In addition, the United States, Britain, Germany and Canada will send four battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland this year – one in each country – with a total number of 4,000.
The news that Washington plans to deploy an armored brigade group in Eastern Europe appeared in late April 2016. The expansion of the military contingent in this region was a response to the concern of the US European allies in the aggressive course of Russia.
The group will be divided into small units, which will then be rotationally deployed in different countries: it is expected that Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania will be the first to receive them. The Pentagon does not report on exact locations.
Earlier, Alliance Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO was preparing for the largest strengthening of collective defense since the end of the Cold War amid growing tension in relations with Russia.
Although Stoltenberg did not provide exact numbers, the British Permanent Representative to NATO, Sir Adam Thomson, told the Times that the goal is to speed up the response time for 300,000 soldiers to two months.
Now, to deploy forces of this scale, a military bloc needs up to six months.
According to plans, these troops should arrive in time for the already deployed NATO response forces within 60 days. The latter are able to deploy forces within 5 days from the start of the conflict. We are talking about the “spear point” of an ultrafast response in the amount of 5 thousand military men, functioning as ground units with the support of the Air Force and Navy, as well as special forces. They are part of 40 thousand military – instead of the previous 13 thousand 28 member states of the North Atlantic bloc agreed to triple the size of the existing response forces. Their deployment period is approximately two weeks.
Iron Sword in Lithuania
Until December 2, Lithuania holds the Iron Sword military exercises of NATO forces, in which, in addition to Lithuanian troops, soldiers from Germany, the USA, Great Britain and Poland take part. An additional NATO battalion will be stationed in Lithuania. In the photo: military exercises of NATO soldiers, which took place in the Lithuanian town of Rukla this fall.
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