- Radoslaw Sikorski claims that the unclear American progress in Poland confused Putin.
- Donald Trump has promised that the US military presence in Poland will remain or increase.
- Johann Wadephul emphasizes that NATO’s capabilities are decisive, not the number of soldiers.
- Radoslaw Sikorski claims that the unclear American presence in Poland is confusing Putin.
- Donald Trump confirmed that there will be roughly the same number of American soldiers in Poland as before.
- Johann Wadephul declared that every NATO soldier in the east is deployed correctly.
The development and changing attitude of the United States regarding its military presence in Poland, according to Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, has confused Russian President Vladimir Putin, who now does not know what the United States will do. Sikorski said this on Friday at the Globsec Forum security conference in Prague during a discussion with the head of German diplomacy, Johann Wadephul. Originally, the new Hungarian minister Anita Orbánová was also supposed to discuss with them, but according to the moderator, she was delayed on her way to Prague, TASR reporter writes.
“Regarding the deployment of troops, we in Poland are of course glad that President (United States Donald) Trump has made it clear that the level of the American presence in Poland will be about the same as it was until recently, maybe even a little bit more. And what is especially satisfying is that we managed to confuse Putin. Now he has no idea what we are going to do. This is how a strategic deception is done,” said Sikorski, to which the audience began to laugh.
NATO in the East
The German minister also praised the decision. “Every single NATO soldier east of Germany is deployed in the right place. So thank you, Mr. President, for clarifying that,” he said to Trump. At the same time, however, he pointed out that concrete military capabilities are more important than the number of soldiers who are deployed in one place or another. “Five thousand plus or minus actually means nothing for the defense of Europe and for the strength of NATO,” Wadephul added.
In order to put the number of 5,000 soldiers into context, Sikorski added that the United States currently has about 85,000 in Europe, Poland has 200,000 in peacetime, and Ukraine almost a million in wartime.
The upcoming NATO summit
Politicians also talked about the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara. They agreed that it will be shown there who fulfills what he promised last year in The Hague and how. According to them, both Poland and Germany took the commitment seriously. Wadephul emphasized that Germany has doubled its defense budget over the past four years and currently spends more than four percent of GDP on defense. In the case of Poland, it is 4.8 percent.
“This will be a verification summit. We made a commitment in The Hague, and by the summit in six weeks in Turkey, we will all know what budgets are planned for next year. And we will see who is on the right track and who is not,” Sikorski said.
Movements of American soldiers
US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that the United States will move an additional 5,000 troops to Poland. He made the announcement days after Washington announced it would delay the originally planned deployment as part of broader changes to the deployment of US forces in Europe. Trump justified his Friday decision by his close relationship with Polish President Karol Nawrocky.
Number of soldiers in Poland
According to Stanislaw Wziatek, the secretary of state at the Polish Ministry of Defense, the average number of US troops in Poland was about 10,000, with fewer recently due to the deployment of part of the force in the Middle East.
The US is exploring the presence
The United States has been reviewing its military presence in Europe for a long time, and Trump has repeatedly stressed that the continent should take more responsibility for its security. Three weeks ago, the Pentagon announced that it would reduce the number of troops in Germany by 5,000.
