War in Ukraine: NATO builds muscle on its eastern flank by deploying more soldiers


And reinforcements are starting to arrive from all over western Europe to the east. Nearly 2,000 American soldiers are thus deployed in Poland and 1,000 others in Romania, while 8,500 others are in…

And reinforcements are starting to arrive from all over western Europe to the east. Nearly 2,000 American soldiers are thus deployed in Poland and 1,000 others in Romania, while 8,500 others are on close alert in the USA or Germany. 800 British arrived as reinforcements in Estonia, 350 Germans in Lithuania. Italy offered to provide 1,400 more troops. As for France, it does not intend to be outdone. 500 French mountain hunters from the 27and Mountain Infantry Brigade thus left Grenoble, Annecy and Gap on Monday to reach the Romanian coast, accompanied by 300 Belgians from the 1er and 3and Battalion of Marche-en-Famenne Lancers and 175 Portuguese. They will be placed under the orders of Colonel Vincent Minguet, the corps commander of the 27and BCA (the battalion of alpine hunters of Annecy). A well-known soldier at the Élysée. He was until last August one of President Emmanuel Macron’s aides-de-camp, accompanying him on many of his trips.

An ancient presence

This deployment is not entirely unexpected. Let’s be correct. In fact, since 2016, several multinational battalions have been prepositioned in the Baltic countries and in Poland. What is called in Brussels the “enhanced forward presence” is based on a simple principle. A battlegroup of around 1,200 to 1,500 men is formed with a lead country – the framework nation – and several contributors. The United Kingdom thus has the lead in Estonia with a French reinforcement today, Danish tomorrow. Canada ensures the security of Latvia with the Italians and the Spaniards. The Germans are in Lithuania with Dutch and Norwegians. And the United States is in Poland with Britons and Romanians. Objective: to show the Russians the strength and determination of the Allies. Also train with local forces, to develop what is called interoperability. An essential technique to be able to act together then on a battlefield, with the same reflexes and the same procedures.

strategic points

While the Alliance’s northeast flank was reinstated, the same was not true of the southeast flank. A little forgotten. For years, Bucharest has been fighting to have one of these battlegroups on its soil. The Black Sea is “strategic” pleads Romania. Well Named. Especially after the annexation of nearby Crimea by Russia. The Romanian government sees far. He redeveloped a former Soviet-era air base near Constanza. With one ambition: to make Mihail-Kogălniceanu the twin sister of the large US base at Ramstein in Germany. And above all, take advantage of the current disagreement between Washington and Ankara, to recover some of the equipment prepositioned in İncirlik in Turkey.

“NATO will not send troops to Ukraine or move planes into Ukrainian airspace”

Slovakia, another Alliance country which shares a border with Ukraine, will also benefit from a reinforced NATO military presence. A battalion formed by the Germans and the Dutch essentially will be deployed. Only Hungary has so far declined the Euro-Atlantic offer. “The Hungarian army has all the necessary weapons to defend the eastern border of the country, if necessary,” replied its Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The country, it is true, still remembers the tragic Soviet military intervention of 1956 which left 2,500 dead in the Hungarian ranks and 700 among the attackers. Budapest therefore does not want to provoke the powerful Russian neighbor.

But limited areas



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