President Joe Biden announced Thursday he would send more troops to Germany after Russian President Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine.
“As I made crystal clear, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power,” the president said during a speech at the White House reacting to Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine.
Biden warned that Putin could be emboldened after invading Ukraine, despite the United States and Europe responding by leveling economic sanctions on Russia.
The president also warned Americans that Putin’s goals were much bigger than just taking over Ukraine.
“He has much larger ambitions than Ukraine, he wants to in fact reestablish the former Soviet Union. That’s what this is about,” Biden said. “And I think his ambitions are completely contrary to the place where the rest of the world has arrived.”
Biden said the United States would join a NATO summit on Friday to signal solidarity and strengthen the alliance in the face of Putin’s aggression.
“The good news is NATO is more united and more determined than ever,” Biden said, vowing to meet the Article 5 commitments to defend NATO territory.
He described NATO as “the greatest military alliance in the history of the world.”
The president said he would send more troops to Europe and deploy them to NATO’s eastern countries such as Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania but repeated that he did not want American troops going to war in Russia with Ukraine.
“Our forces are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia in Ukraine,” Biden said.
The president said he was already taking steps to ready additional forces to Europe if necessary.
When asked if he believed Putin was prepared to use nuclear weapons, Biden replied, “I have no idea what he’s threatening.”