The US has put 8,500 soldiers on high alert in response to Russia’s build-up of over 100,000 troops along the border with Ukraine.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said no final decision had been made about a deployment, but that the troops would form the spearhead of the NATO Response Force (NRF) which comprises some 40,000 troops, that would reinforce the security of NATO countries, should Russia invade Ukraine.
“This is about reassurance to our NATO allies,” Kirby told a Pentagon news conference, but he reiterated that the soldiers would not be sent to Ukraine, which nevertheless was rapidly receiving a surge in supply of defensive weapons from the US.
Kirby said the military manoeuvres should telegraph “a very clear signal to Mr. Putin to take NATO seriously,” should he continue to threaten the security of US allies.
Over the weekend the first tranche of weapons forming part of a $200 million security assistance package President Biden authorized in December arrived in Kyiv.
“The second bird in Kyiv! More than 80 tons of weapons to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities from our friends in the USA! And this is not the end,“
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
The U.S. has sent approximately $2.7 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine and occupied the eastern region of Donbas and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
