A contingent of up to 10 American troops on Friday became the first ever full-time US presence in fellow NATO member Poland aimed at facilitating joint training exercises on US-made F-16 war planes.
The commander of US European Command (EUCOM) and NATO\'s Supreme Allied Commander, Admiral James Stavridis, and Polish Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak inaugurated the United States Air Force detachment at the Lask air force base in central Poland, a US embassy statement said.
The US boots on the ground in Poland are intended to facilitate quarterly rotations of up to 250 American airmen stationed in Germany for joint training exercises with Poles on US-made F-16 warplanes and C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.
The exercises are to begin next year at the Lask, Powidz and Krzesiny air force bases in central Poland and are aimed at boosting inter-operability between the NATO allies.
US President Barack Obama and Polish counterpart Bronislaw Komorowski agreed to create the first US detachment on Polish soil in Washington in December 2010, a move which immediately raised hackles in Poland\'s communist-era master Russia.
A statement issued at the time by the Russian defence ministry said Moscow would "take into account the American-Polish plans and carry out [its] own armed forces development projects" adding it "believed that different decisions would be better in the interest of European security."
Russia and Poland, a former Soviet satellite, have had strained relations since the fall of communism in 1989 and the demise of the Soviet Union two years later, and notably after Warsaw joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.
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