Kremlin will be forced to respond to US troop buildup in Poland, Russian lawmakers say

Russian lawmakers vowed to retaliate after President Trump announced Wednesday he would deploy 1,000 more U.S. troops to Poland.

Several members of Russia’s parliament condemned Trump’s move, which Warsaw had requested to deter potential aggression from Moscow. The U.S. already has 4,000 service members in Poland.

“In the event of any conflict, God forbid, the territory of Poland would become a clear target for a retaliatory strike, if there was suddenly an attack on us,” Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the upper house of parliament’s international affairs committee, told the Interfax news agency, according to Reuters.

“The world is gradually slipping toward a dangerous moment comparable to the Caribbean crisis,” Vladimir Shamanov, head of the lower house of parliament’s defense committee and a former commander of Russia’s special forces, told Interfax, comparing the development to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

“We will be forced to take retaliatory measures and we have them in our armory,” he added.

Russia’s Parliament is rarely involved in crafting foreign policy, except when the Kremlin needs the upper house’s formal approval for a military operation.

Sergei Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying the move could mark “aggressive intentions” from the White House, Reuters reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the upcoming deployment to Poland, but said in an interview published earlier Thursday that relations between Moscow and Washington “are getting worse and worse,” noting U.S. sanctions against Russia.

The announcement of the deployment comes ahead of the Group of 20 summit later this month in Japan, where Putin and Trump could meet on the sidelines.