Germany has said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will discuss temporarily deploying its forces in Poland amid tensions with Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
On Sunday, a spokesman for the German Defense Ministry made the announcement.
Meanwhile, a NATO official said that its defense ministers would review on Tuesday measures the alliance had taken in relation to Russia’s alleged actions toward Ukraine.
The official said this could include “enhanced air patrols over the Baltic states, AWACS surveillance planes over Poland and Romania, more exercises, and an enhanced naval presence by NATO allies from the Baltic to the Black Sea.”
Russian military’s chief of general staff General Valery Gerasimov said last week that Russia will pull back all forces deployed to regions near its border with Ukraine following an order by President Vladimir Putin.
He said the troops’ removal could take around 20 days.
On May 19, President Putin called for an end to military exercises in regions bordering Ukraine, where troops had been deployed since March.
The deployment of an estimated 40,000 troops raised concern that Moscow might intervene in eastern Ukraine to support pro-Russia protesters, but Russia says the exercises were routine and part of maneuvers which are held every year.
Tensions between Russia and the West heightened after Ukraine’s former Black Sea peninsula of Crimea joined the Russian Federation following a referendum on March 16.
SRK/MAM/AS
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