US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has ordered the deployment of around 10,500 personnel in the coming months to replace Army units ordered to the region in advance of, and in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
These forces are not going to Ukraine, but will be stationed in Europe to ensure the defense of NATO countries, said Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby.
These deployments are a one-for-one unit replacements, which leaves our overall force posture in the region - approximately 100,000 — unchanged," he said at a Pentagon news conference.
This is not a constant movement, Kirby said. "These are steps designed to respond to the current security environment," he said.
"Ukrainians have prevented the russians from achieving virtually any of their strategic objectives thus far in the war," Kirby said. "Now, both sides have taken casualties. Both sides have lost capabilities, whether that's actual hardware or defensive systems. That's why we're trying so hard to make sure that Ukraine continues to have available to it, the materials, the systems, the weapons to continue to defend themselves, "said a spokesman of the US Department of Defense.
On May 11, the US House of Representatives approved a package of aid to Ukraine worth almost $ 40 billion. $23.4 billion in this package will be military aid, the rest - humanitarian and economic aid.
However, the US Senate was unable to vote on the package after the Republican Senator Rand Paul blocked its adoption.