Romania moves military forces to border with Ukraine
En.itar-tass.com
April 27, 2014
BUCHAREST, April 27. /ITAR-TASS/. Romania has moved military formations to the eastern border of the country, as a military train loaded with air defence systems, trucks and surface-to-air missile launch systems headed through Romania’s capital, Bucharest, to the Romanian Black Sea city of Constanta. Military hardware is needed for joint military exercises in which U.S. servicemen and four U.S. fighters F-16 participate, the Romanian Defence Ministry told reporters.
“War games will be held according to the plan of strategic partnership between our countries,” Romanian Defence Minister Mircea Dusa told reporters earlier.
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Estonia have earlier asked NATO and the United States to build up military presence in these countries over current crisis in Ukraine. After the start of this crisis AWACS surveillance aircraft have started to make daily flights from the NATO airbase Geilenkirchen in Germany over southern Romania, conducting radar reconnaissance in southern Ukraine, Moldova and Crimea. At the beginning of the year the North Atlantic Alliance has shifted military functions of Pentagon’s Transit Centre at Kyrgyz airport Manas to airbase Mihail Kogalniceanu near the port city of Constanta which will transfer cargoes and troops during an anti-terrorism operation in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Romanian President Traian Basescu has satisfied Washington’s request to beef up the numerical strength of marines at this base from one thousand to 1.6 thousand. Romanian authorities also asked Washington to deploy in Romania a squadron of U.S. fighters until 2017, as Bucharest plans to buy 12 used fighters F-16 in Portugal for the country’s Air Force to replace outdated fighters MiG-21 Lancer by this deadline.
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