https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-troop...russias-doorstep-103725752.html?.tsrc=fauxdalU.S. and other Western nations have carried out exercises on NATO's eastern flank in past years, but the new deployment — which includes some 3,500 U.S. troops — marks the first-ever continuous deployment to the region by a NATO ally.
It is part of a larger commitment by President Barack Obama to protect a region that grew deeply nervous when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and then began backing separatist rebels in Ukraine's east.