Russia has condemned the US decision to deploy thousands of troops in Eastern Europe. The US on Wednesday ordered nearly 3,000 troops to Europe to support its NATO allies amid continuing fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Of the 3,000- 2,000 were forwarded to Germany and Poland while the remaining were stationed in Romania.
This move by the US came after Russia refused to pull back 100,000 troops poised on Ukraine’s border. US Prez Joe Biden asserted that the Pentagon would reassure their NATO allies in eastern Europe were provided back up as long as the Russian President is acting aggressively.
Sharply firing back, the decision, Russia called the deployment unfounded and ‘Destructive’. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said that the move would make it harder for a compromise between the two sides. In response to the ‘destructive’ comment-Pentagon spokesman John Kirby has delineated that the US troop movements were to a demonstrated commitment to the NATO alliance, and said that no American soldiers would engage in the fight in Ukraine.
The tensions come eight years after Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula and backed a bloody rebellion in the eastern Donbas region. Rivalry between Russia and the US, which still possess the world’s biggest nuclear arsenals, dates back to the Cold War (1947-89). Ukraine was then a crucial part of the communist Soviet Union, second only to Russia.