We took note of the statements made by US Army Europe Commander Ben Hodges on March 17. He spoke about the imminent buildup of US troops in Eastern European countries for Operation Atlantic Resolve. The US armour fleet (Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles) will grow from 60 to 220 units.

The general preferred an option that would keep these forces in Eastern European countries for an indefinite period, referring to the activities surrounding Operation Atlantic Resolve as “the new normal”.

In this context, we would like to recall the allied obligation under the Russia-NATO Founding Act on Mutual Relations to refrain from deployment of substantial combat forces on the territory of new members, i.e. those Eastern European countries that Lt Gen Hodges is talking about. In our opinion, permanent deployment of US armour in NATO’s eastern flank on the aforementioned scale will raise serious doubts about NATO’s compliance with its commitments.

If the course towards undermining the key provisions of the Founding Act is also “the new normal” for the United States, then Washington is openly neglecting the interests of European security and deliberately working towards military and political destabilisation.

We hope that Europe understands the danger of blindly following the advice of US generals and will choose the approaches that would rule out a possibility of Russia and NATO sliding into a military confrontation.