Russia welcomes US exit from Germany

Russia’s Foreign Ministry yesterday welcomed US President Donald Trump’s reported plan to withdraw more than a quarter of American troops from Germany, saying it would help bolster security in Europe.

Trump has reportedly signed off on a plan to cut the number of troops stationed in Germany from 34,500 to no more than 25,000.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “we would welcome any steps by Washington to scale down its military presence in Europe”.

“Such steps would undoubtedly help reduce confrontational potential and ease military and political tensions in the Euro-Atlantic region,” Zakharova said at a briefing, adding that the large US military presence in Germany is a “vestige of the Cold War”.

Zakharova challenged the US to also take its tactical nuclear weapons home from Germany.

German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters earlier this week that Berlin hadn’t yet been informed of any US troops pullout. She warned that if the US goes ahead the move would do more harm to Nato as a whole than to Germany’s own defence.

Relations between Russia and the West are at post-Cold War lows following the 2014 Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and other issues. Moscow has described the deployment of Nato forces near Russian borders as a top security threat.

Zakharova strongly warned Washington against redeploying some of the troops from Germany to Poland, saying it would further exacerbate tensions and undermine prospects of dialogue between Russia and Nato.