pentagon. let s get to moscow with cnn s nathan hodges. besides being worried, what else did the kremlin have to say about the deployment of those u.s. troops? reporter: well, isa, overnight kremlin spokesman told cnn that this deployment, this move by the biden administration was de facto pumping up tensions in eastern europe and that echos what russian president vladimir putin said a couple of days ago following a press conference with hungarian president victor orban. putin repeated a lot of the grievances we ve heard over the years. said the u.s. and nato have ignored three of russia s key sticking points in this, quote, confrontation over ukraine. that s the stationing of nato strike weaponry in eastern europe. that s the open door policy to
non negotiable, the idea of that nato must have an open door policy, that the people of ukraine must be able to aspire to nato membership, and then of course there are things that it would be sensible to talk about and things that need to in the uk in the us, everybody, is willing to discuss, including transparency about nato exercises, about nato force posture, about the stationing of missiles, taking progress certainly on the ims area where russia is in breach and making progress on missiles. all those subjects for discussion and far, far to begin a discussion now than to have a catastrophe, so that is what we are pushing for and there is a
it seems like this gives him an opportunity, steve, to say we are going to retool some things because we re now in a situation that we didn t expect to be in. you have a potential war happening in europe and we will make some changes. it gives him a bit of an out to shift gears? it does indeed. we ll see if he has a fortitude and judgment to make those changes. you mention on the energy side. he should reverse himself on that and in terms of stationing nato forces on the front lines in poland, the baltic states and elsewhere. we should go ahead with that. we refrained from doing it in the past. we also should be looking at being proactive against putin. that s supporting dissident forces in bull belarus where you had fake elections. a lot of dissidents want to overthrow the putin puppet and help ukraine. be proactive. start here with energy and not just be satisfied with a
to strengthen the security of the baltic region. strengthen in what way? do you want a permanent stationing of u.s. troops? this is a complex process for us. we are talking about strengthening of the peaceful flank of nato. it includes of course baltic black sea region but includes the baltic region, too. i am happy and i welcome very much recent decisions to strengthen very materially, to strengthen the baltic countries and first of all i would like to tell that germany has a leading country presence send 350 troops additionally, also increase the
up green men, soldiers started popping up before a more sizeable official military presence was imposed by russia. with all of that apparatus in place, any potential incursion would be drawn out and it would be bloody, frankly, and catastrophic. this is why the west is so desperate to avoid this. yes, they are lining up to avoid this. yes, they are lining up sanctions. at the other concern for ukrainians is nato members have made it clear that it is extremely unlikely that any nato troops will fight and help with ukraine s defence, in an escalation of this war. yes, they are moving troops to the east, and stationing them their more permanently, but the overall picture is a messy one. it would be farfrom picture is a messy one. it would be far from straightforward and it would be ordinary people at the heart of it on both the russian and ukraine side, that bear the brunt. many thanks indeed, james waterhouse, our correspondent in kyiv. more than 60 flood warnings remain in place across