Pentagon Names Army Units Tapped for Possible European Deployment
Defense spokesman cautions that these units have only been alerted, not activated, as tensions continue around Ukraine.
Caitlin M. Kenney
By Caitlin M. Kenney
Staff Reporter
Soldiers from the Army’s elite airborne divisions are among the 8,500 service members currently on heightened alert to rapidly deploy if NATO activates its multinational response force, the Pentagon announced Thursday.
“These forces are on a heightened preparedness to deploy. They have not been activated,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby emphasized during a news conference. “The vast majority of the troops that the [defense] secretary put on prepare to deploy are in fact dedicated to the NATO Response Force. And if and when they're activated, we'll be able to provide more specific detail in terms of breakdowns in numbers.”
Russia has been assembling military equipment and more than 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border for months; recent additions include medical units. Ukrainian leaders have tried to temper its citizens’ concerns that Moscow, which illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, might invade at any moment while U.S. government officials continue to state an incursion could be “imminent.”
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/01/pentagon-names-army-units-tapped-possible-european-deployment/361304/
