Mateusz Morawiecki made the statement on social media after the Pentagon announced on Wednesday that the United States would send 1,700 extra troops to Poland and around 1,000 to Romania to reassure its Eastern European NATO allies in the face of a major Russian military buildup near Ukraine.
"The United States has announced a plan to deploy 1,700 soldiers to Poland in response to escalating tensions in Ukraine," Morawiecki said on Facebook.
"From the very beginning, Poland has strongly opposed all manifestations of aggression and terror on the part of Russia and raised this issue on the international arena," he added.
He also wrote that "the gesture of solidarity on the part of the United States is another important symbol of the unification and cooperation of democratic countries and a warning to Vladimir Putin against taking any further military action."
Meanwhile, Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said in a tweet that the planned deployment of 1,700 additional US troops to Poland "is a strong signal of solidarity in response to the situation in Ukraine."
Around 1,700 US service members, mainly from the 82nd Airborne Division, will deploy from Fort Bragg, North Carolina to Poland, while a Stryker squadron of about 1,000 service members based in Vilseck, Germany will be sent to Romania, a spokesman for the US Defense Department said on Wednesday, as cited by the Reuters news agency.
Three hundred other service members will move from Fort Bragg to Germany, the Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, told a news conference.
The aim is to send a "strong signal" to Russian President Vladimir Putin "and frankly, to the world, that NATO matters to the United States and it matters to our allies," Kirby told reporters.
"We worked closely with our Polish and German allies to set the stage for these movements, and we appreciate their support," he also said.
He added: "These are not permanent moves. They respond to current conditions. We will adjust our posture as those conditions evolve."
Russia's military buildup near Ukraine has in recent weeks raised fears in the West that Moscow may be preparing for a new invasion of the country.
Moscow has denied plans for an assault but says it could take unspecified military measures if its security demands are not met, including a promise by NATO never to admit Kyiv, Reuters reported.
Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and then fomented a separatist conflict in that country's eastern Donbas region, leading to a wave of EU and US sanctions against Moscow and Russian officials, Poland's PAP news agency reported.
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Source: PAP
