Biden made the declaration at a White House briefing on Wednesday, according to the polskieradio24.pl website.
Asked by Polish Radio’s Washington correspondent Marek Wałkuski how long he would keep US forces deployed in Poland and other NATO countries, the US president replied that “they will be there for a long time."
20,000 additional US troops sent to Europe in response to Russia’s war
Biden’s statement chimes with a recent declaration by John Kirby, the US National Security Council's Coordinator for Strategic Communications, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Kirby told Polish Radio on Monday that Biden had deployed an additional 20,000 US troops to Europe in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He added that the US Department of Defense had developed a framework to allow the extra 20,000 US soldiers to remain in Europe on a rotation basis in the foreseeable future, according to the polskieradio24.pl website.
Kirby was also quoted as saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had altered the “security landscape” in Europe.
Kirby told Poland's PAP news agency last week that the United States had an almost 100,000-strong force in Europe and added that the troop numbers were likely stay unchanged for a longer period of time, according to a report.
Kirby said that, under America’s new National Defence Strategy, China poses the “most consequential challenge” for the United States, while Russia presents “acute” but temporary threats, but he stressed that Washington has sufficient military capabilities to meet both challenges, the PAP news agency reported.
Thursday is day 253 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, polskieradio24.pl, niezalezna.pl