US military may be withdrawn from the "Mihail Kogalniceanu" base near Constanta in Romania, former commander of US forces in Europe General Ben Hodges said in an interview with Digi24, BTA reported.
„With Mihail Kogalniceanu we are talking almost entirely about ground troops. I assume that the troops there may be included in the withdrawal plan. Most likely, the military that will be withdrawn are those who rotate with "Mihail Kogalniceanu". These are the ones that come for six months, nine months or a year,” he commented.
Ben Hodges added that most of the troops that are being rotated are in Eastern Europe, in Poland, Romania and Lithuania, and the amounts allocated for them come from the funds of the European Defense Initiative. The American general added that this will be one of the methods by which the Trump administration is trying to move resources out of Europe.
„I think this is a mistake. First of all, I think the administration has been wrong from the very beginning in the way it is negotiating with Russia. They are either naive or incompetent when it comes to Russia. And the Russians see this. Europe cannot complain that it does not have a seat at the table because the administration in Washington does not respect Europe. So Europe needs to build its own table," he believes.
According to the Romanian Ministry of National Defense, about 1,700 American soldiers are currently stationed in Romania, at the bases in Mihail Cogalnicanu, Deveselu and Campia Turzii.
On Wednesday, the ministry denied information that the United States was considering withdrawing 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe, including Romania and Poland. The ministry's position is that Romania had not received any official information from the United States to this effect and that several exercises involving American soldiers were planned in the country this year.