In a press conference on Tuesday Feb.22, President Biden said Russia’s actions to recognize and deploy troops to separatist regions in Eastern Ukraine marked the beginning of an invasion and that U.S. forces in Europe would be repositioning.
President Biden said, “Today, in response to Russia’s admission that it will not withdraw its forces from Belarus, I have authorized additional movements of U.S. forces and equipment already stationed in Europe to strengthen our Baltic allies - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.”
He added that this repositioning of U.S. forces was being done so for purely defensive posturing and that the U.S. has no intention of fighting Russia.
“We want to send an unmistakable message, though, that the United States, together with our allies, will defend every inch of NATO territory and abide by the commitments we made to NATO,” he said.
Following this statement and President Biden’s orders, the U.S. Department of Defense released a report detailing what this repositioning of forces entailed.
The DOD report noted that an infantry battalion of approximately 800 soldiers would deploy from Italy to the Baltic region. Along with the 800 infantry soldiers, the report noted that approximately eight F-35 fighter jets and 32 Apache helicopters would be repositioning throughout the region as well.
“These additional personnel are being repositioned to reassure our NATO allies, deter any potential aggression against NATO member states, and train with host-nation forces,” DOD officials wrote in the report.
