US to deploy heavy weapons on Nato’s eastern flank
TALLINN: The US will deploy heavy weapons in central and eastern Europe for the first time, Washington said Tuesday, in the midst of the worst standoff between Russia and the West since the Cold War, triggered by the crisis in Ukraine.
“We will temporarily stage one armoured brigade combat team’s vehicles and associated equipment in countries in central and eastern Europe,” US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said at a joint press conference with three Baltic defence ministers on the eve of Nato ministerial talks.
“This pre-positioned European activity set includes tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery,” he said, adding that Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland had “agreed to host company- to battalion-sized elements of this equipment” which would be “moved around the region for training and exercises.”
“While we do not seek a cold, let alone a hot war with Russia, we will defend our allies,” Carter added.
The Pentagon said the deployment of 250 items of heavy weaponry would include 90 Abrams tanks, 140 Bradley armoured vehicles, and 20 selfpropelled howitzers.
“The American move sends a signal to Russia, US allies and other global powers that the US is a leading global military power able to counter Russian
We will temporarily stage one armoured brigade combat team’s vehicles and associated equipment in countries in central and eastern Europe.
Ashton Carter, US Defence Secretary
threats in the region — that it’s not a power in decline,” Marcin Terlikowski, an analyst with the Polish Institute of International Affairs, told AFP.
The US announcement followed promises by Nato on Monday to step up its military presence in eastern Europe against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian rebels on Tuesday accused government forces of killing three civilians in attacks launched hours before the start of another round of talks in Paris on ways to halt the 15-month separatist war.
Kiev’s Western-backed military command reported the death of one soldier and accused the proRussian rebels of heavy mortar and artillery fire.
The ongoing bloodshed underscores a consistent failure by diplomats to find a way out of a crisis that has killed 6,500 people in a little over a year.
The Paris talks brought together the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, but resulted in little beyond the now-familiar rhetoric, with a joint statement calling for “a rapid deescalation” of the latest fighting and “an immediate ceasefire”, as well as calls to withdraw heavy weapons from the front lines.
“We expressed our serious concerns regarding the security situation in Donbass,” the ministers said, referring to the war-torn region in eastern Ukraine. — AFP