WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has now deployed into Ukraine nearly 100 percent of the more than 150,000 forces that he had pre-staged outside the country before the invasion, a senior U.S. defense official said on Monday.
“That’s our best estimate right now,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon has also ordered over the weekend an additional 500 troops to Europe, which would bring the total number of American forces there to about 100,000, the official said, as the United States seeks to guard against the war’s spillover into NATO nations.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
