US to Store Heavy Weapons in Poland, Baltic States
Plans to Stash Gear to 'Reassure' Allies
by Jason Ditz, June 14, 2015
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US officials say they are in talks with Poland and Lithuania, among other former Soviet bloc countries, on a plan to stash heavy weaponry, include US battle tanks and Bradley IFVs, in those countries for future use in the region.
The deals aren’t finalized, but the Pentagon says they plan to “pre-position significant equipment” along the Russian frontier, with at least a battalion’s worth of gear in Poland, and potentially Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary, with additional gear to be sent to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
Officials say the deployments are meant to reassure Eastern European nations of US military support in the event of a Russian invasion of the region, something US officials have been hyping as a possibility all year, but which no one outside of politicians seriously seems to expect.
Lithuanian Premier Aigirdas Butkevicius confirmed that the possibility of US tanks being stored there “has been discussed many times” and that he believed a deal was close. Polish officials expressed similar sentiments on the deployments.
http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/14/us-to-store-heavy-weapons-in-poland-baltic-states/
