Biden Announces Small Troop Deployment To Eastern Europe

US President Joe Biden has sought to maintain pressure on Russian leader Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, announcing a small troop deployment to Eastern Europe even as top Pentagon officials backed a renewed push for diplomacy.

While President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Western leaders to avoid stirring “panic” over the massive Russian troop buildup on his country’s borders, Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed on the need for de-escalation.

Neither Putin nor his Western counterparts had until now appeared ready to give ground in the weeks-long crisis, the worst in decades in the region between Russia and Western Europe.

But according to a Macron aide, Putin told the French leader in a call lasting more than an hour that he had “no offensive plans.”

During his talks with Macron, Putin “expressed no offensive plans and said he wanted to continue the talks with France and our allies,” the aide to the French president said.

In Washington, Biden nevertheless said he would soon send a small number of US troops to bolster the NATO presence in eastern Europe as tensions remain heightened.

The United States already has tens of thousands of troops stationed across mostly Western Europe.

At the Pentagon, top officials urged a focus on diplomacy while saying that Russia now had enough troops and equipment in place to threaten the whole of Ukraine.

Since October, Russia has amassed more than 100,000 combat troops and equipment, as well as support forces, along its frontier with Ukraine and more recently in Belarus, which borders Ukraine on the north.