President Duda: NATO's presence in the eastern flank should be increased

Poland's President Andrzej Duda was welcomed on Monday in Brussels by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who thanked Poland for its major contributions to NATO’s shared security, including by hosting one of the Alliance’s multinational battlegroups in the region.

"Russia now has deployed well over 100,000 troops with enabling capabilities, including medical units, command and control, and logistics. We also expect around 30,000 Russian troops to be deployed in Belarus: the largest build-up there since the Cold War. These deployments are not justified, not transparent, and very close to NATO borders," Stoltenberg said.

"We are considering more longer-term adjustments to our posture, our presence in the eastern part of the alliance. No final decision has been made on that but there is a process now going on within NATO", he told reporters in Brussels.

"If Russia really wants less NATO close to the borders, they get the opposite," Stoltenberg added, referring to NATO's response to deploy battlegroups on its eastern territory following Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

He also praised United States sending more troops to European countries, calling it "a powerful demonstration of American commitment to our Alliance".

"Other Allies are also contributing more forces to NATO on land, in the air, and at sea. Our deployments are defensive and proportionate. They send a clear message: NATO will do whatever is necessary to protect and defend all Allies," he added.

Answering a question from reporters, President Andrzej Duda said: "I do believe that NATO's presence in the eastern flank should be increased along the whole eastern flank starting from the north, all the way down to the south".

Duda also said that earlier that day he had discussed with EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen European sanctions against Russia. " I assume that the introduction of these sanctions, if they were necessary to be introduced, I do hope that they will be painful and I hope that it won't pay off to Russia," he stressed.

NATO currently has troops rotating in and out of eastern Europe, a so-called persistent, but not permanent, presence.

From the Baltics to the Black Sea, NATO's troop deployments have been intentionally light, officials say, to try to deter but not provoke any further Russian aggression. Hungary and Slovakia have been mentioned by Western officials as potential hosts for NATO troops, although no decisions have been made.