The U.S. has sent troops to within 100 miles of the border of Russia’s military enclave of Kaliningrad to bolster a NATO outpost in Poland, Newsweek reported.
The news did not sit well with Russia, which claimed the move threatened its security and warnd it would consider adding nuclear-capable Iskander ballistic missiles on its side of the border as a deterrent to the U.S., the magazine stated.
The 2nd Calvary Regiment arrived in Orzysz, Poland from Rose Barracks in Germany to take part in Battle Group Poland in support of NATO's enhanced Forward Presence initiative, according to the U.S. European Command website.
Vladimir Shamanov, head of the defense committee for Russia's lower house of parliament, told the Russian state-run news agency TASS on Thursday that it would consider a missile build-up of its own in the region.
"This creates prerequisites that may eventually enable them to create a certain stronghold," Shamanov told TASS. "We will surely not turn a blind eye on this. We will take retaliatory measures. Not just personnel, but combat equipment. For instance, the group of Iskanders, including that in Kaliningrad, may be increased."
Europe has kept a watchful eye on Russia since it forcefully annexed the Crimean Peninsula from neighboring Ukraine, a former republic under told Soviet Union, in 2014, Newsweek noted. NATO responded by expanding its military presence near Russia, especially among the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, along with Poland.
Russia, in turn, has charged that the military build-up violated the main pact that governs Russia's relations with NATO, NATO-Russia Founding Act, according to Radio Free Europe.
NATO said in a statement on its website in June that it has "fully abided" by the act.
"The four multinational battlegroups deploying to the eastern part of our alliance are rotational, defensive and well below any reasonable definition of 'substantial combat forces,'" the statement said. "There has been no permanent stationing of substantial combat forces on the territory of eastern allies; and total force levels across the Alliance have, in fact, been substantially reduced since the end of the Cold War."
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