Two days earlier, the Pentagon announced 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.
Poland's Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said in a Twitter post on Friday that "more American planes" were "landing in Poland" in preparation for the deployment of US soldiers.
"Soon, troops from the 82nd Airborne Division, one of the most renowned US units, will reach Poland," Błaszczak wrote, posting photos of soldiers unloading equipment from a cargo plane.
In an earlier tweet, Błaszczak announced that an "advance group" had arrived in Poland the previous day.
"This is a clear signal of allied solidarity in response to the situation in Ukraine," he tweeted.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Wednesday that Washington's decision to send more troops to Poland, Romania and Germany amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine was a symbol of allied unity and a warning to Vladimir Putin against taking any further military action.
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."
Around 4,500 American troops are already stationed in Poland on a rotating basis.
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, Reuters