US troop withdrawal from Europe expected in ‘coming months'
The US is expected to announce a reduction in its military presence in Europe in the 'coming months,' the German daily Handelsblatt has reported, citing 'high-ranking European diplomats.' The scale of the pullout is still unclear, but NATO is reportedly making preparations, according to the paper.
The pullout could be linked to the new US national defense strategy, according to EU sources contacted by the newspaper. The document is expected to be ready by the end of summer, the report said. Washington needs to focus its efforts on countering China as it is not prepared for a potential confrontation with Beijing, according to US Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, who was approached by Handelsblatt.
Rumors about a potential pullout have been circulating in the media ever since NBC News reported in April that the US was considering withdrawing up to 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe. US President Donald Trump later confirmed that he is considering a partial withdrawal but did not elaborate on either its scale or timetable.
In mid-May, the US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, said Washington plans to start talks about a potential pullout with other NATO members following the bloc's summit in June. 'We are not going to have any more patience for foot dragging in this situation,' he said at the time, while admitting that 'nothing has been determined' yet.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz publicly denied speculation about a US pullout during a visit to Lithuania this week. 'We currently have no indication that the United States of America will withdraw troops from Europe,' he told journalists at a joint press conference with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda in Vilnius.
The cost of replacing the US equipment and personnel following a withdrawal could amount to around $1 trillion over 25 years, Politico reported earlier in May, citing a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
As of early 2025, there were nearly 84,000 US troops stationed in Europe, with the largest concentrations in Germany and Poland, and smaller deployments in Romania, Estonia, and Lithuania, according to the US European Command.
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The usual diehard Western bellicists, long starved of good news, have pounced on Ukraine's probably exaggerated account of these assaults to fantasize once more about how Ukraine has 'genius,' while Russia is 'vulnerable' and really almost defeated. Despair makes imaginative. In the wrong way. The reality of Ukraine's drone strikes on the airfields is not entirely clear yet. What is certain is that Ukraine targeted locations in five regions, including in northern and central Russia as well as Siberia and the Far East. Kiev's drone swarms were launched not from Ukraine but from inside Russia, using subterfuge and civilian trucks. Under International Humanitarian War (aka the Law of Armed Conflict), this is likely to constitute not a legitimate 'ruse of war' but the war crime of perfidy, a rather obvious point somehow never mentioned in Western commentary. Yet at least, in this instance the targets were military: This was either an act of special-ops sabotage involving a war crime (the most generous possible reading) or plain terrorism or both, depending on your point of view. Three of the attacked airbases, it seems, successfully fended off the Ukrainian first-person-view kamikaze drones. In two locations, enough drones got through to cause what appears to be substantial damage. Ukrainian officials and, therefore, Western mainstream media claim that more than 40 Russian aircraft were destroyed, including large strategic bombers and an early-warning-and-control aircraft. Official Russian sources have admitted losses but not detailed them. Russian military bloggers, often well-informed, have quoted much lower figures ('in the single digits,' thirteen), while noting that even they still constitute a 'tragic loss,' especially as Russia does not make these types of aircraft anymore. In financial terms, Ukrainian officials claim that they have inflicted the equivalent of 'at least 2 billion' dollars in damage. Even if it should turn out that they have been less effective than that, there can be little doubt that, on this occasion, Kiev has achieved a lot of bang for the buck: even if 'Operation Spiderweb' took a long time to prepare and involved various resources, including a warehouse, trucks, and the cheap drones themselves, it is certain that Kiev's expenses must have been much less than Moscow's losses. In political terms, Russia's vibrant social media-based sphere of military-political commentators has revealed a sense of appalled shock and anger, and not only at Kiev but also at Russian officials and officers accused of still not taking seriously the threat of Ukrainian strikes even deep inside Russia. One important Telegram 'mil-blogger' let his readers know that he would welcome dismissals among the air force command. But he also felt that the weak spots exploited by Kiev's sneak drone attack have systemic reasons. Another very popular mil-blogger has written of 'criminal negligence.' Whatever the eventual Russian political fall-out of these Ukrainian attacks, beware Western commentators' incorrigible tendency to overestimate it. German newspaper Welt, for instance, is hyperventilating about the attack's 'monumental significance.' In reality, with all the frustration inside Russia, this incident will not shake the government or even dent its ability to wage the war. Probably, its real net effect will be to support the mobilization of Russia. Remember that Wagner revolt that saw exactly the same Western commentators predicting the imminent implosion not merely of the Russian government but the whole country? You don't? Exactly. In the case of the terrorist attacks on civilian trains, the consequences are even easier to predict. 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This, too, would not succeed. One lesson of the Chechen Wars is precisely that Moscow has made up its mind not to bend to terrorism but instead eliminate its source, whatever the cost. Regarding those Istanbul talks, they have taken place. Ukraine was not able to make Russia abandon them. Otherwise, the results of this second round of the second attempt at peace in Istanbul seem to have been very modest, as many observers predicted. Kiev, while losing, did its usual grimly comedic thing and offered Moscow a chance to surrender. Moscow handed over its terms in turn; and they have not changed and reflect that it is winning the war. Kiev has promised to study them. Given that the gap between Ukrainian delusions and Russian demands seems unbridgeable at this point, even a large-scale ceasefire is out of reach. And that may be, after all, what both the Zelensky regime and its European backers want. As to Moscow, it has long made clear that it will fight until it reaches its war aims. In that sense, the new talks confirmed what the attacks had signaled already: peace is not in sight. Russia's chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky did, however, offer smaller, local ceasefires of 'two to three days' that, he explained, would serve to retrieve the bodies of the fallen for decent burial. In the same spirit, Russia has committed to hand over 6,000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers and officers. There was something for the living as well: more prisoner exchanges, for those severely ill or injured as well as for the young, have been agreed. Figures are not clear yet, but the fact that they will take place on an 'all-for-all' basis reflects a Russian gesture of good will. Finally, Medinsky also revealed that the Ukrainian side handed over a list of 339 children that Russia has evacuated from the war zone. He promised that, as in previous cases, Russian officials will trace them and do their best to return the children to Ukraine. Medinsky pointed out that the number of children on Kiev's list massively contradicts Ukrainian and Western stories – as well as lawfare – about an immense, 'genocidal' Russian kidnapping operation. In that sense, the talks at least helped to deflate an old piece of Western information war. Perhaps that is all that is possible for now: truly incremental humanitarian progress and a very gradual, very slow working toward a more reasonable manner of talking to each other. Better than nothing. But that's a low bar, admittedly.
