With 14,000 U.S. troops activated in countries around Ukraine, the Pentagon has set up lines of communication with Russia to avoid miscalculation or escalation between the two nuclear powers.
A senior defense official quoted by NBC News said there is more than one channel in operation and that communication had been operable “for about the past day” as of around 1:45 p.m. EST Thursday. The U.S. European Command – a combatant command of the United States military, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany – set up the deconfliction mechanism, said the outlet.
“The United States retains a number of channels to discuss critical security issues with the Russians during a contingency or emergency,” said a senior defense official, according to Stars & Stripes.
Since Feb. 24, Russian troops have attacked multiple cities in Ukraine, an ex-Soviet Union state which Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin does not recognize as a sovereign nation. The U.S. has pledged support for Ukraine.
However, since Ukraine is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the U.S. has not sent troops directly to the country. According to The Military Times, 14,000 U.S. troops had been activated in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as of Monday.
“In addition to 80,000 permanently stationed forces, the U.S. has committed 12,000 stateside troops ― and another 2,000 based in Germany, Italy and Greece ― to be stationed in NATO partner nations along Russia’s western border, along with attack helicopters and strike fighter jets,” said the outlet.
U.S. Air Force Gen. Tod D. Wolters, the commander of U.S. European Command and NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, visited NATO's multinational battlegroup in Tapa, Estonia, Monday.
Wolters thanked Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas for hosting U.S., U.K. and other NATO forces in her nation, said the Department of Defense.
In addition to U.S. forces, the NATO response force was activated for the first time last week.
“They represent a flexible, combat credible force that can be employed in multiple ways and we are utilizing fully their inherent agility,” said NATO.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world with an inventory of approximately 5,997, followed by the U.S. with an inventory of approximately 5,428.
Additionally, Ukraine has four major nuclear power plants and was the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. Higher radiation levels were detected at the Chernobyl site last week after Russians took control of the area.
Russian forces also attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, late Thursday and early Friday morning. During the attack, two people were injured and a fire broke out near a nuclear reactor.
While the International Atomic Energy Agency said there was no release of radioactive material during the attack, Director General Rafael Mario Grossi said “I’m extremely concerned about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP and what happened there during the night. Firing shells in the area of a nuclear power plant violates the fundamental principle that the physical integrity of nuclear facilities must be maintained and kept safe at all time.”
With more U.S. military personnel operating near the Ukraine-Russia conflict zone, “concerns persist of a possibility of a close encounter that leads to a miscalculation and an escalation,” said NBC.
“I mean, we don't have perfect visibility into the Russian mindset,” said a senior defense official this week. “I think it's important to remember, over the course of the last few months, starting in late fall or, sorry, early fall, they started building up power, to the point where they eventually got to more than 120 battalion tactical groups and north of 150,000 troops, as I've said many times, in a combined arms sort of a set of capabilities.”
As of Thursday, the Department of Defense said Putin had put in 90 percent of his “pre-staged combat power” across the border into Ukraine. They said there was also heavy Russian bombardment in Ukrainian cities to the north and to the east – Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv.
“In general, we still assess that Russian forces are largely stalled across the north,” said the senior department official. “That doesn't mean that they aren't making any progress, but in general they still appear to be largely stalled, is how we would characterize it.”
Overall, the Department of Defense had counted 480 Russian missile launches since the attacks began.
In another attempt to prevent escalation with Russia, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced Tuesday that a planned test launch of an American Minuteman III rocket would be postponed.
“We recognize at this moment of tension how critical it is that both the United States and Russia bear in mind the risk of miscalculation, and take steps to reduce those risks,” he said. Austin also said the test launch delay demonstrates that the U.S. is “a responsible nuclear power.”
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