3000 US troops, tanks arriving in Poland a threat to security says Russia

American soldiers during a welcome ceremony
in Olszyna, Poland.
Photograph: Natalia Dobryszycka/AFP/Getty Images

US Tanks and other equipment began arriving in Germany last week and are being moved to Eastern Europe.

Russia says it views the arrival of more than 3,000 US soldiers in Poland as a threat to its own security.

The troops are part of President Barack Obama's response to reassure Nato allies concerned about a more aggressive Russia.

It is the largest US military reinforcement of Europe in decades.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC that the move "threatens our interests and our security".

"It's a third country that is building up its military presence on our borders in Europe," he said. "It isn't even a European country."

More than 80 main battle tanks and hundreds of armoured vehicles have already arrived in Germany and are now being moved into eastern Europe by road and rail.

The deployment, intended to counter what Nato portrays as Russian aggression in eastern Europe, will see US troops permanently stationed along Russia’s western border for the first time.
About 1,000 of a promised 4,000 troops arrived in Poland at the start of the week, and a formal ceremony to welcome them is to be held on Saturday. Some people waved and held up American flags as the troops, tanks and heavy armoured vehicles crossed into south-western Poland from Germany, according to Associated Press.

But their arrival was not universally applauded. In Moscow, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We perceive it as a threat. These actions threaten our interests, our security. Especially as it concerns a third party building up its military presence near our borders. It’s [the US], not even a European state.”

The Kremlin may hold back on retaliatory action in the hope that a Donald Trump presidency will herald a rapprochement with Washington. Trump, in remarks during the election campaign and since, has sown seeds of doubt over the deployments by suggesting he would rather work with than confront Putin.

But on Thursday Nato officials played down Trump’s comments, saying they hoped and expected that he would not attempt to reverse the move after he became president on 20 January.

That prediction was reinforced by Trump’s proposed defence secretary, James Mattis, and his proposed secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who backed Nato during Senate confirmation hearings.

Mattis, in rhetoric at odds with the president-elect, said the west should recognise the reality that Putin was trying to break Nato.

Tillerson, who has business dealings in Russia, described Russia’s annexation of Crimea as “as an act of force” and said that when Russia flexed its muscles, the US must mount “a proportional show of force”.

Nato was caught out by the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has struggled to cope with Russia’s use of hybrid warfare, which combines propaganda, cyberwarfare and the infiltration of regular troops disguised as local rebels.

In response, the US and its Nato allies have been steadily increasing air patrols and training exercises in eastern Europe. The biggest escalation is the current deployment of US troops, agreed at last summer’s Nato summit in Warsaw.

The move was billed as an attempt to reassure eastern European states who have been calling for the permanent deployment of US troops in the belief that Russia would be less likely to encroach on territory where US troops are present.

Peter Cook, the Pentagon press spokesman, said: “The United States is demonstrating its continued commitment to collective security through a series of actions designed to reassure Nato allies and partners of America’s dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine.”

Poland in particular has pressed for a permanent US troop deployment since soon after the fall of communism in 1989.

Nato officials insist that the US and other alliance troops deployed to eastern Europe are not “permanent”, which would be in breach of an agreement with Russia. The US plans to rotate the troops every nine months, so it can argue they are not in breach of the Russian treaty, but effectively there will be a permanent presence.

Read: NATO-Russia relations: the facts

The UK is also contributing to the buildup of Nato forces in eastern Europe. The UK formally took command this week of Nato’s response force, made up of 3,000 UK troops plus others from Nato who will be on permanent standby ready to deploy within days. The contributing countries include the US, Denmark, Spain, Norway and Poland.

Few at Nato seriously believe that war with Russia is likely but there have been dangerous developments, with escalation on both sides, including a buildup of Russian troops. Russia alarmed Poland and other eastern European states by moving nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles to its naval base at Kaliningrad in the autumn. At the time Nato regarded the move as a response to its own deployments.

The Polish foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, voicing concern in eastern Europe that Trump might do a deal with Putin, said this week he hoped that any such reconciliation would not be at Poland’s expense.