Thai, US Troops Prepare for Scaled Down 'Cobra Gold' Exercises

Bangkok — 

An annual joint military exercise between the United States and Thailand will kick off on Sunday on a reduced scale compared to pre-pandemic times, with traditional war games absent from a two-week program of largely humanitarian training drills.

“Cobra Gold,” which was launched in 1982, is the world’s longest-running multinational military exercise and serves as a key platform for the United States to shore up alliances in Asia at a time of increasing competition with China.

China will also be taking part, along with military personnel from India, Indonesia and U.S. allies South Korea and Australia.

They will joined by about 1,200 American and 2,000 Thai troops in field and humanitarian assistance drills that will last until March 5. Activities like live fire drills, amphibious landings and evacuation operations will not be part of this year’s event.

In 2019, about 4,500 American soldiers participated in Cobra Gold. In 2020, 106 took part and 600 joined last year.

Despite the smaller scope, Thailand sees the exercises an essential mechanism to enhance military cooperation, its defense ministry spokesperson Kongcheep Tantravanich said.

Myanmar, previously a Cobra Gold observer, will not be taking part for a second successive year, which Kongcheep said was not related to the crisis in the country since the military seized power last year.

The United States has condemned the Myanmar military, with which Thailand’s military has historically had good ties.

Pentagon Reporters Request Access to Troops in East Europe

pentagon — 

Pentagon reporters have asked the Biden administration to grant them access to the approximately 3,000 U.S. troops being deployed to Eastern Europe and Germany in response to rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

The Pentagon Press Association, which represents about 100 journalists, including two at Voice of America, wrote a letter Wednesday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan requesting that they “lift the ban on news coverage of American military members deploying to Europe to reassure NATO allies during the Ukraine crisis.”

“The existing ban, including denial of reporters’ requests to speak directly to troops at their deployed locations and to embed with units, is contrary to the basic principle of press freedom,” the association’s board wrote.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon that the administration respected the concerns of the press but was “not at a point now” to provide the access requested.

“We don’t make decisions to grant access or not to grant access lightly, and there’s lots of factors that go into that. Sometimes it has to do with operational security. Sometimes it has to do with how that kind of access nests into the larger strategy that we’re pursuing,” Kirby said.

Russia has placed more than 100,000 of its troops along its border with Ukraine, in the illegally annexed Crimea region and along Ukraine’s northern border with Belarus.

Moscow says its troop placements are for military exercises and claims it has no intention of invading Ukraine.

In response to Russia’s troop buildup, President Joe Biden ordered about 2,000 U.S. forces to Poland and Germany and moved about 1,000 troops from Germany to Romania. Both Poland and Romania border Ukraine.

The U.S. says it has no plans to place combat troops in Ukraine. A small number of U.S. troops are in Ukraine as part of a training program that began after Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Russian Bombers Train Over Belarus; US Troops Arrive in Poland

WASHINGTON — 

Russia sent two long-range, nuclear-capable bombers to patrol over western Belarus, Russia’s ally and Ukraine’s neighbor to the north, as the first U.S. troops arrived in Poland.

The Russian Tu-22M3 bombers were accompanied by Su-30SM fighter jets from the Russian and Belarusian air forces and trained for four hours in the third mission of its kind in the last month.

Belarus has grown increasingly close to Russia since the West imposed sanctions on the country following the 2020 elections, which were widely seen as fraudulent, and the subsequent crackdown on peaceful protesters.

On Saturday, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko praised the Russian-led security alliance, saying it showed its ability to deploy quickly when it sent troops to Kazakhstan last month to put down fuel price protests that had turned violent.

“While they [NATO] will be still getting prepared to send some troops here, we will already stand at the English Channel, and they know it,” he said in a reference to Western allies, in an interview on Russian state TV.

Lukashenko, however, downplayed the threat of war in Ukraine, saying, “there is no one there to fight us.”

Next week, two prominent European leaders are scheduled to travel to the capitals of Russia and Ukraine for talks with their counterparts about diplomatic measures to ease the growing tensions surrounding Moscow’s potential invasion of Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron is due in Moscow on Monday and Kyiv on Tuesday. The following week, Germany’s Olaf Scholz is set to visit Kyiv on Feb. 14 and Moscow on Feb. 15.

Macron spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO head Jens Stoltenberg on Saturday. In separate conversations each agreed with Macron for the need “to continue working to find through dialogue a path to de-escalation” and that NATO must remain “united in the face of Russian aggression.”

“As announced, the first elements of the brigade battle group from the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army have arrived in Poland,” a Polish military spokesperson said.

The U.S. troops arrived at Rzeszow military base in southeastern Poland, near its border with Ukraine, after U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday ordered the deployment of 1,700 soldiers there. About 4,000 U.S. troops have been stationed in Poland on a rotational basis since 2017.

Biden also ordered troops to Romania and Germany, raising the total number of additional troops to nearly 3,000.

U.S. Army sources have previously said that about 1,700 U.S. service members, primarily from the 82nd Airborne Division, would deploy from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Poland “over the next days.”

The first contingent of additional U.S. troops arrived in Germany on Friday.

U.S. troops from the 18th Airborne Corps arrived Friday in Wiesbaden, Germany, according to the U.S. military’s European Command, which added they would establish a headquarters in Germany to support 1,700 paratroopers who have been ordered to deploy to Poland.

The U.S. placed 8,500 other U.S. troops on high alert in January to deploy to Europe if necessary. They remain on high alert and NATO defense ministers are expected to discuss adding more reinforcements at their next meeting on Feb. 16-17.

According to a New York Times report, while Russia’s troops massed along the border are not ready to launch a total invasion of Ukraine, sections of its army “appear to be in the final stages of readiness for military action should the Kremlin order it.”

Moscow has dispatched an additional 10,000 troops to the region, the Times said, in addition to the thousands of troops already deployed to the area.

Some information for this report was provided by RFE/RL, The Associated Press and Reuters.

NATO Welcomes Additional US Troops to Bolster Alliance’s Eastern Flank

WASHINGTON — 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday welcomed U.S. plans to deploy more troops to Europe and said NATO is considering sending additional battle groups to the southeastern part of its alliance amid tensions along the Russia-Ukraine border.

Stoltenberg told reporters that while NATO is preparing for the possibility that Russia may take military action, NATO remains ready to engage in “meaningful dialogue” and find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.

“NATO continues to call on Russia to deescalate. Any further Russian aggression would have severe consequences and carry a heavy price,” he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that the U.S. deployment is heightening tensions in the region.

The United States and other Western allies have been preparing economic sanctions to level against Russia in hopes of persuading Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull back the more than 100,000 troops Russia has near the border. Russia has denied it plans to invade Ukraine.

Stoltenberg said Thursday there has been a “significant movement of Russian military forces into Belarus,” Ukraine’s northern neighbor where Russia is set to take part in joint military drills this month.

“This is the biggest Russian deployment there since the Cold War,” Stoltenberg said.

Russia has demanded NATO pull back troops and weapons deployed in eastern European member countries, and to make clear that Ukraine cannot join the 30-member military alliance.

NATO and Ukraine have rejected those demands, saying countries are free to pick their allies.

But Stoltenberg said Thursday that NATO is ready to talk to Russia about relations between the two sides, and about risk reduction, increased transparency and arms control.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is meeting Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the latest in a series of visits to Kyiv by world leaders and diplomats to show support for Ukraine and try to advance a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

Erdogan has suggested Turkey, a NATO member that also has good relations with Russia, could act as a mediator.

Talks Wednesday between Putin and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not provide any breakthroughs. French President Emmanuel Macron was expected to have a phone conversation with Putin later Thursday.

Macron and U.S. President Joe Biden discussed the Russia-Ukraine situation in a call Wednesday, with the White House saying the two leaders reviewed diplomatic efforts and “preparations to impose swift and severe economic costs on Russia should it further invade Ukraine.”

The Norwegian Rights Council also warned Thursday about the effects on those living in eastern Ukraine if the crisis escalates.

After years of violence in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where Ukrainian forces have been battling Russia-backed separatists, the aid organization said the humanitarian needs are already high with nearly 3 million people relying on aid.

Increased fighting “would devastate already damaged civil infrastructure, further restrict peoples’ movements, block access to communities in need, and disrupt essential public services such as water, power, transport and banking,” the NRC said in a statement.

The U.S. said Wednesday it is dispatching 2,000 more troops to Europe, most of them to Poland, and moving 1,000 troops from Germany to Romania to bolster NATO’s eastern flank countries.

The additional U.S. troops, part of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, are “not going to fight in Ukraine” in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. Rather, he said, they are intended as an “unmistakable signal that we stand with NATO.”

Kirby said the new deployment is not permanent, but that the U.S. could dispatch more troops as warranted. Kirby said the deployment is separate from the 8,500 U.S. troops placed on heightened alert last week for possible dispatch to Europe.

The Defense Department spokesperson said the U.S. still does not believe Putin has “made a decision on invading Ukraine.”

But Kirby said the Russian leader is “showing no signs of being willing to de-escalate” and has continued to add troops in Russian-aligned Belarus to Ukraine’s north and along Russia’s border with eastern Ukraine.

Kirby said the U.S. is “prepared for a range of contingencies” involving Putin’s actions toward Ukraine. The spokesman said the new deployment is “not the sum total of the deterrence.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba addressed the conflict in a broader context at a news conference Wednesday, saying, “I’m confident that Russia’s war on Ukraine and wider Europe will ultimately end when two fundamental issues are resolved. First, the West should turn from reactive to proactive strategies when dealing with Russia.”

He added, “Ambiguity on Ukraine’s role as an indivisible part of the West has to be put to an end. The Ukrainian people chose this course and defended it at a high price.”

“We are historically, politically and culturally a part of the West,” Kuleba said. “It is time to end harmful ambiguity which serves as a temptation for the Kremlin to continue its attempts to undermine Ukraine or reverse its course against the will of the Ukrainian people.”

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

US Sending More Troops to Romania, Poland, Germany

The United States is moving forces into Eastern Europe as Russia continues its buildup near Ukraine. The Pentagon says the U.S. is responding to allies’ requests regarding a possible Russian invasion. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb reports.

Cameras: Mike Burke, Adam Greembaum, Carla Babb.

US Talks Tough as Russian Troops Mass Near Ukraine

Will Russia invade Ukraine? While the world waits, the war of words is picking up steam, with top diplomats from the U.S. and Russia going head-to-head at the United Nations and President Joe Biden vowing that the U.S. is ready “no matter what happens.” VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.

NATO Sends Troops, Warplanes East to Counter Russian Threat

Several NATO member states are sending troops and hardware to allies in Eastern Europe as tensions with Russia escalate. The United States has put several thousand troops on alert. Moscow has over 100,000 troops amassed on the Ukraine border, and the West fears an imminent Russian invasion, which the Kremlin denies. Henry Ridgwell looks at what NATO’s military response means.
 
Camera: Henry Ridgwell