President Joe Biden on Friday ordered the deployment of 3,000 more troops to Europe to bolster NATO's eastern flank as U.S. officials gave an urgent warning that Russia is now on the cusp of invading Ukraine.
The paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were ordered to deploy to Poland, according to a senior defense official. Those soldiers were expected to leave Fort Bragg, North Carolina, shortly and be on the ground in Poland “by early next week.”
The deployment comes in addition to 1,700 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne and XVIII Airborne Corps who started mobilizing Feb. 2. Nearly two-thirds of that first set of soldiers have arrived in Poland, and 300 soldiers who are mostly administrative personnel have been sent to Germany.
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In all, about 5,000 paratroopers from Fort Bragg are mobilizing amid the Ukraine crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that the former Soviet republic never be allowed to join the NATO alliance, and has spent nearly a year massing military forces around its border.
The increased U.S. troop deployment comes as the Biden administration sounded the alarm Friday that Putin now has enough troops, tanks, artillery and warships encircling Ukraine to mount an invasion — possibly before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing on Feb. 20, Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, told…
