WARSAW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th February, 2023) The number of US military personnel deployed in Poland has doubled over the past two years, reaching almost 10,000, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Sunday.
At the end of 2020, media reported about 5,000 US soldiers stationed in Poland.
"We have done everything to join NATO, precisely in order to receive the guarantee under Article 5 of the (NATO) treaty ... Today, with the strengthening of NATO's presence on the eastern flank, almost 10,000 US troops are deployed on our land," Duda said in an interview with Le Figaro.
NATO has been boosting its eastern flank along the borders with Russia and Belarus since late 2021 by dispatching additional troops. In response to Moscow launching a military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, NATO has further reinforced the flank by sending more ships, planes and ground troops to the region and putting them on high alert.
NATO's Article 5, which provides that any attack on a member of the alliance "is considered as an attack against all Allies," became a matter of active discussion after a missile fell in Poland and killed two people in November 2022. Although NATO and the United States have concluded that the missile was not fired from Russia, Warsaw has kept talking about the importance of the guarantees set out in the article.
