{"id":187130,"date":"2019-04-21T07:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-04-21T07:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=187130"},"modified":"2019-04-24T06:05:16","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T06:05:16","slug":"france-sends-troops-tanks-to-russian-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=187130","title":{"rendered":"France Sends Troops, Tanks to Russian Border"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sputnik News \u2013 April 19, 2019<\/h1>\n
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French special Forces in Syria. click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The French unit will be deployed in Estonia, just 140 kilometres away from Russia. The deployment is Paris\u2019 contribution to the increased NATO presence in the Baltic States and Poland. Russia has long voiced alarm over the alliance\u2019s activities near its borders.<\/span><\/p>\n

A unit of\u00a0300 soldiers from\u00a0the French Army and the Foreign Legion is expected to\u00a0arrive in\u00a0the Estonian town of\u00a0Tapa, just 140 kilometres away from\u00a0the Russian border, next week, according to\u00a0France\u2019s Embassy in\u00a0Tallinn.<\/span><\/p>\n

The troops will stay in\u00a0Estonia until\u00a0the end of\u00a0August as\u00a0a part of\u00a0the FRA-EFP LYNX mission, which is aimed at\u00a0boosting the alliance\u2019s presence<\/strong> <\/span><\/a>in\u00a0the region. Paris will also deploy five Leclerc tanks and 20 infantry fighting vehicles, including 13 VBCIs, which is a French version of\u00a0Multi-Role Armoured Vehicles (MRAV). They will be transported to\u00a0Estonia by\u00a0rail.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not the first time that French forces have been present in\u00a0Estonia, as\u00a0they were also located in\u00a0Tapa for\u00a0ten months in\u00a02017. In addition, in\u00a02018, the French Air Force also patrolled Estonian airspace within\u00a0the framework of\u00a0NATO\u2019s Baltic air security mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Britain, Canada, the U.S., Germany and now France are all stepping up the deployment of their forces close to Russia’s borders. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

This deployment is France’s contribution to\u00a0NATO’s increased presence in\u00a0the Baltic States and Poland. Their soldiers will replace the Belgian units serving with\u00a0NATO\u2019s British-led battle group in\u00a0Tapa, according to\u00a0the Estonian website ERR. The UK has 20 Challenger-2 tanks as\u00a0well as\u00a030 IFVs there. In addition, just recently, the UK also sent five Apache attack helicopters <\/strong><\/span><\/a>to\u00a0the Amari Airbase in\u00a0Estonia to\u00a0join NATO’s \u201cenhanced forward presence\u201d along\u00a0the alliance’s border with\u00a0Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

The units are to\u00a0take part in\u00a0Estonia\u2019s annual Spring Storm (Kevadtorm) drills, involving 10,000 troops, which are set to\u00a0start on\u00a029 April. As the Estonian news website reports, citing the country\u2019s Ministry of\u00a0Defence, NATO\u2019s presence will also be increased further this year on\u00a0the Baltic Sea ahead of\u00a0the Baltic Protector and BALTOPS naval exercises.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moscow has repeatedly voiced alarm <\/strong><\/span><\/a>over\u00a0NATO\u2019s unprecedented activities and boosting its presence in\u00a0the region, citing the alleged \u201cRussian threat\u201d. The Kremlin earlier stated that Russia poses no threat to\u00a0anyone, but\u00a0will not leave any potentially dangerous activities without\u00a0attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

The UK, Canada, Germany, and the US lead multinational \u201cBattle Groups\u201d, part of\u00a0NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) in\u00a0Eastern Europe. The UK deployment includes troops from\u00a0the King’s Royal Hussars Armoured Regiment. NATO agreed to\u00a0the creation of\u00a0a forward presence in\u00a0the region in\u00a02016 at\u00a0a Warsaw summit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The alliance has considerably beefed up\u00a0its presence near\u00a0Russia in\u00a0the aftermath of\u00a0the 2014 Ukraine crisis, deploying battle groups, staging major exercises, and deploying reconnaissance aircraft and drones along\u00a0the border.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following Britain\u2019s lead, which has just deployed attack helicopters to Estonia, France will now deploy 300 combat troops and tanks to the Estonian town of Tapa, 140 kilometres from the border with Russia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187130"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187135,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187130\/revisions\/187135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}