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The US will move its troops from a base in Poland that has been critical in the west’s effort to supply arms to Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression, citing cost-cutting as a reason.
Polish politicians on Tuesday rushed to give reassurances that the move did not signal a diminished US interest in Nato’s eastern flank. But the announcement comes at a time when Poland and other allies have grown concerned about US President Donald Trump’s overtures to Russia and his threats to European allies about withdrawing America’s historic security guarantees.
“After three years at [the US base of] Jasionka this is an opportunity to right-size our footprint and save American taxpayers tens of millions of dollars per year,” said General Christopher Donahue, commanding general of US Army Europe and Africa.
Following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the US established a temporary base in Jasionka, next to the city of Rzeszów close to Poland’s border with Ukraine. It soon became the biggest hub for the transport of military equipment to Ukraine, as well as for the evacuation of wounded Ukrainian soldiers to hospitals across Europe.
What had been a small regional airport in south-eastern Poland was turned into a landing spot for large military transport aircraft, with US Patriot air defence systems dotted along its runway.
The US army said on Monday that “the important work of facilitating military aid to Ukraine via Jasionka will continue under Polish and Nato leadership, supported by a streamlined US military footprint. Poland and its allies will maintain the robust protective infrastructure around this critical site.” It added that the decision had been co-ordinated with allies.
In January Germany installed two of its own Patriot batteries around Rzeszów and Jasionka, taking over some of the air defence responsibility from the US.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, who had previously insisted that the US would continue and even increase its military presence in central and eastern Europe, on Tuesday sought to play down the significance of the announcement, saying that Washington had informed him of the decision in advance.
“I am familiar with the issue of taking over responsibility for the safety of the Rzeszów airport and its security,” he said.
After briefly meeting Trump in the US in February, Duda said there should be “no fear that the American presence in Poland will decrease” and instead it should be “assumed” that it would be reinforced.
“US troops are staying in Poland!” Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s defence minister, wrote on X on Tuesday. “The nature of the mission in Jasionka is changing,” he added, insisting that it had already been agreed at last year’s Nato summit that US troops would eventually hand over Jasionka to mainly Norwegian, German, British and Polish troops.
The Trump administration has suggested that it was seeking to reduce its military footprint in Europe as it focuses on other conflict areas and as it seeks to pressure European allies to cover more of their own security costs. Poland, however, has the largest defence budget in Nato, allocating the equivalent of 4.7 per cent of its GDP to its military this year.
The US army said it had recently set up “more robust facilities” in Poland than Jasionka, and that there had been “significant investment in those facilities from both the Polish and US governments”, including at a permanent US garrison in Poland, opened since 2023.
The US also inaugurated last year a missile defence base in Redzikowo, close to Poland’s Baltic coast. Redzikowo has a sister base in Romania and both are part of a Nato plan to protect its eastern flank against medium- and intermediate-range missiles.
Additional reporting by Natalia Sawka
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