U.S. adding garrison in Poland

MADRID — President Joe Biden said Wednesday the U.S. will significantly expand its military presence in Europe, the latest example of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped plans for the continent’s security and prompted a reinvestment in NATO.

Among the changes will be a permanent U.S. garrison in Poland, for the first time creating an enduring American foothold on the alliance’s eastern flank. Biden also said the U.S. would send two additional squadrons of F-35 fighter jets to the United Kingdom and more air defenses and other capabilities to Germany and Italy.

The U.S. is preparing to keep 100,000 troops in Europe for the “foreseeable future,” up from 80,000 before the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Finland and Sweden that if they welcome NATO troops and military infrastructure onto their territory, Russia will respond in kind.

He said Wednesday that Russia will have to “create the same threats for the territory from which threats against us are created.”

The two formerly nonaligned Baltic countries were formally invited Wednesday to join the Western military alliance.

On the battlefield, Russian forces fought Wednesday to surround Lysychansk, the Ukrainian military’s last stronghold in a long-contested eastern province, as shock reverberated from a Russian airstrike on a shopping mall that killed at least 18 in the center of the country two days earlier.

Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said Russia “may think time is on its side” due to the escalating costs borne by the West and fatigue as the war grows longer. The most likely scenario predicted by American intelligence, Haines said, is a “grinding struggle” in which Russia consolidates its hold over southern Ukraine by the fall.