US troop reinforcements arrive near Poland-Ukraine border
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Dozens of US paratroopers have arrived at a Polish airport near the Ukrainian border.
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US troop reinforcements arrive near the Poland-Ukraine border.
Amid tensions with Russia, hundreds of US paratroopers arrived at a Polish airfield near the Ukrainian border on Wednesday as part of a multi-thousand-strong deployment to buttress NATO's eastern flank.
At Rzeszow Airport, just 100 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, soldiers disembarked from two Boeing C-17 military cargo planes and boarded buses, according to AFP reporters.
Soldiers were also flown to and from the airport in Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters. Working dogs on leashes were brought by some of the soldiers.
At a temporary camp established in and around a glass-covered conference facility opposite the airport terminal, dozens of soldiers were observed in armored cars, military trucks, containers, and dozens more soldiers.
"We don't know yet," a sergeant operating at a checkpoint into the camp, who refused to be named, told AFP when asked about the duration of their stay.
Since February 5, soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, stationed in North Carolina, have been landing at the Jasionka airfield.
The US deploys troops to Poland
The airport serves as a conventional civilian terminal for Podkarpackie, with Ryanair flights today, Wednesday, to London and Manchester.
In response to Russia's alleged troop buildup around Ukraine, the US has announced that it will temporarily deploy roughly 4,700 extra soldiers to EU and NATO member Poland.
With the new arrivals, the US military presence in Poland will have grown to roughly 10,000 troops on rotation.
At the commencement of the campaign, the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, Chris Donahue, the last US soldier to leave Afghanistan, vowed that the forces would "defend any portion of NATO."
"This deployment is a prudent measure to ensure collectively the prevention of any war aims. It is defensive," Donahue told reporters.
This comes after Russia announced the completion of its joint military exercises with Belarus and the return of part of its troops from Crimea to their permanent locations, a step some Western officials saw as reassuring about Russia's unwillingness to deploy military troops beyond its borders.
The West has been threatening Russia with sanctions in case of an escalation while fueling one through deploying troops all over Europe and providing Kyiv with arms, violating the Minsk agreement, as the latter amassed over 120,000 soldiers on the Donbas borders.
