The US on Wednesday deployed several thousand troops to bolster NATO forces in eastern Europe, as the leaders of France and Germany flagged trips to Moscow to address Western fears of an invasion of Ukraine.
With Russia refusing to pull back 100,000 troops poised on Ukraine’s borders, 1,000 US soldiers in Germany are being sent to Romania, and another 2,000 stationed in the US are being flown to Germany and Poland.
“As long as [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is acting aggressively, we are going to make sure we reassure our NATO allies in eastern Europe that we’re there,” US President Joe Biden said after the deployments were announced.
Photo: AP
In response, Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Grushko said the move would make it harder for a compromise between the two sides, calling the US deployments “destructive steps, which increase military tension and reduce scope for political decision.”
Western powers have been engaged in intense diplomatic efforts — coupled with the threat of sanctions against Putin’s inner circle — to deter what they fear to be a looming invasion of ex-Soviet Ukraine, despite strenuous denials from Moscow.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday said that he would soon travel to Moscow to discuss the crisis, while French President Emmanuel Macron said a similar trip might be on the cards — depending on upcoming talks with other world leaders.
Biden and Macron pledged to coordinate their response to the crisis in a telephone call on Wednesday, while the French president’s office said he would be talking to Putin again last night.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby stressed that the US troop movements were to demonstrate commitment to the NATO alliance and that no US soldiers would be sent to fight in Ukraine, which is not a NATO member.
However, that is unlikely to assuage Putin, who has accused the US and NATO of seeking to “contain” Russia by placing troops and strategic arms on its border.
“Ukraine itself is just a tool to achieve this goal,” Putin said on Tuesday in his first major comments in weeks on the crisis.
Putin has demanded guarantees that Ukraine would not join NATO and has implicitly threatened the former Soviet state with the massive military buildup.
Russia also wants NATO and the US to foreswear the deployment of missile systems near Russia’s borders and to pull back NATO forces in eastern Europe.
Putin has left the door open to talks, saying he was studying Western proposals set out last month in response to Russia’s demands and that he hoped that “in the end we will find a solution.”
However, in a phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday, he noted “the unwillingness of NATO to adequately respond to the well-founded Russian concerns,” the Kremlin said.
The Kremlin also claimed it had China’s support in the standoff — backing that would be demonstrated when Putin meets Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing today.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was the latest NATO leader to visit Kiev on Wednesday in a show of support, meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
After the talks, Zelenskiy said Ukraine was focused “only on peace,” but added that it has the right to defend itself.
Rutte said it was “essential for dialogue to continue” between Russia and the other players.
Citing leaked documents, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that the Western proposals to Russia — set out in letters by NATO and the US last month — include arms control and trust-building measures to defuse the situation.
While a guarantee against Ukraine joining NATO was not offered, the documents proposed commitments by the US and Russia “to refrain from deploying offensive ground-launched missile systems and permanent forces with a combat mission in the territory of Ukraine,” El Pais reported.
“We did not make this document public,” Kirby said, without denying its authenticity.
He said that it confirmed that “NATO and its partners are unified in their resolve and open to constructive and serious diplomacy.”
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
US-CHINA SUMMIT: MOFA welcomed US reassurance of no change in its Taiwan policy; Trump said he did not comment when Xi talked of opposing independence US President Donald Trump yesterday said he has not made a decision on whether to move forward with a major arms package for Taiwan after hearing concerns about it from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Trump’s comments on Taiwan came as he flew back to Washington after wrapping up critical talks in which both leaders said important progress was made in stabilizing US-China relations even as deep differences persist between the world’s two biggest powers on Iran and Taiwan. “I will make a determination,” Trump said, adding: “I’ll be making decisions. But, you know, I think the last thing we need right
TAIWAN ISSUE: US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on the first day of meetings that ‘it wouldn’t be a US-China summit without the Taiwan issue coming up’ There were no surprises on the first day of the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, as the government reiterated that cross-strait stability is crucial to the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the world. As the two presidents met for a highly anticipated summit yesterday, Chinese state media reported that Xi warned Trump that missteps regarding Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict.” Trump arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a “great leader” and “friend,” and extending an invitation to visit the White House
RSS