Late last week, media reports said that the US Army had unloaded 87 tanks and other military equipment including jeeps and howitzers from three transport ships at the German port of Bremerhaven.
The equipment is being transported to Poland by rail; it will be deployed there as well as throughout the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Romania.
The extra military presence is part of the Atlantic Resolve operation launched by the US military in April 2014, in the aftermath of the US-backed Maidan coup in Ukraine.
The US has used claims of Russia's alleged military interference in Ukraine as a pretext for its military build-up in Eastern Europe, which Russia regards as a security threat.
📷: The first group of #US troops are on their way to #Europe. In total, 4000 soldiers will be deployed there in the coming days. pic.twitter.com/yWzqiCqtEB
— Already Happened (@M3t4_tr0n) 6 января 2017 г.
Commenting on the matter, Heike Hansel specifically pointed to the fact that the Bundestag had actually turned a blind eye to the deployment of US troops and military hardware to Eastern Europe via German territory.
"This deployment was approved at NATO summits and I don't recall any active debates in the German parliament regarding it. Our party's defense experts certainly asked critical questions and openly slammed [Germany's] federal government for becoming a springboard for the further aggravation of the policy in relation to Russia, something that we unequivocally reject," he said.
Hansel also drew attention to the fact that Germany's armed forces, the Bundeswehr, contributes significantly to the deployment by providing comprehensive logistics. This is co-financed by the federal government and German taxpayers.
Asked about why Germany is involved in what is seen by many as a purely American move, rather than NATO's, Hansel recalled that the deployment comes within the framework of NATO Operation Atlantic Resolve and is supported by Germany as part of a military alliance.
"In general terms, it should be noted that this deployment is little more than a trick to evade the agreement between Russia and NATO which specifically warns against the alliance permanently stationing troops in Eastern Europe. I'll proceed from the assumption that future troop deployments will be carried out in line with the same scheme," Hansel said.
In the past ten years, NATO's presence along Russia's western borders has grown eightfold, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said last month.
In July NATO held a summit in Warsaw, where defense ministers finalized arrangements to deploy multinational NATO battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, totaling around 4,000 troops.
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