NATO preparing for potential ground war with Russia — including plans for US troop involvement

NATO is mapping out “land corridors” to enable US troops and other allied forces to reach the front lines quicker in the event of all-out war.

NATO is mapping out “land corridors” to enable US troops and other allied forces to reach the front lines quicker in the event of a broader European ground war with Russia.

The move follows warnings from NATO leaders earlier this year urging Western governments to prepare themselves for a full-blown war with Russia sometime in the next 20 years.

The newly established troop expressways would see American soldiers landing at one of five designated ports.

They would then be deployed along pre-established routes depending on how a potential attack by Moscow would play out, NATO officials told The Telegraph.

The new routes would expand on existing arrangements that have been in place since last year when the alliance agreed to have 300,000 troops in a state of high readiness during a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Under the current plans, US forces would land at ports in the Netherlands before being transported through Germany and on to Poland by train.

If Russia was to invade a NATO ally, US troops would be rallied to Rotterdam before heading east, according to the outlet.

Now, the alliance is also preparing to shuffle those troop entry points in the event Russia launches an attack on the Netherlands or destroys ports in northern Europe.

A British soldier looks into a telescopic sight as he holds his sniper rifle during the NATO DRAGON-24 military exercise in Korzeniewo, northern Poland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up his rhetoric in recent days.

Other plans being drawn up would see US troops arrive at Italian ports and travel by land through Slovenia and Croatia to Ukraine-bordering Hungary.

Troops could also be dispatched to ports in Greece or Turkey before traversing Bulgaria and Romania to reach the eastern portion of the alliance.

Additional plans have troops arriving at ports in the Balkans, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

“Everything is created in a way so the necessary resilience exists — robustness, reserves and also redundancies,” Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC) Lt. Gen. Alexander Sollfrank told The Telegraph of the plans.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up his rhetoric in recent days, following the US and Germany both giving Ukraine the green light to use its weapons to attack some targets within Russian territory.

On Wednesday, Putin warned that Russia could provide long-range weapons for its allies to use against Western targets, and hinted that Moscow would use nuclear weapons if its authority came under threat.

Ukrainian strikes on parts of the Russian-held Lugansk and Kherson regions killed 26 people and injured dozens more on Friday, occupation authorities said.

A Leopard 2A4 tank of the Polish armed forces arrives after crossing the Vistula river during the NATO DRAGON-24 military exercise.

The move follows warnings from NATO leaders earlier this year urging Western governments to prepare themselves for a full-blown war with Russia sometime in the next 20 years.

Both Ukrainian regions were among four Russia claimed to have annexed in September 2022 despite not fully controlling any of them following the full-scale military campaign launched that February.

A shop in the village of Sadove in the southern Kherson region “with a large number of visitors and employees was destroyed”, Vladimir Saldo, head of Russian occupation authorities in Kherson, wrote on Telegram.

A HIMARS missile struck shortly afterwards as residents from neighbouring houses rushed to help the victims, Saldo told Russian media, putting the overall toll at 22 dead and 15 injured.

Saldo condemned the “vile murder of civilians” made possible by Western arms deliveries to Ukraine.

Earlier on Friday, Russian-appointed officials in Lugansk reported that a Ukrainian missile strike on an apartment block in the eastern region’s main city of the same name killed four and wounded more than 40.

NATO Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg.

Lugansk city came under a “massive” missile attack on Friday morning, according to Leonid Pasechnik, the Russia-appointed head of the region almost entirely under Moscow’s control.

A section of an apartment block collapsed and the “bodies of four peaceful civilians killed were removed from the rubble”, the Moscow-backed region’s government said on Telegram.

“Forty-six people have received medical treatment,” said regional health minister Nataliya Pashchenko, adding that they included an eight-year-old boy and three teenage boys.

The condition of 10 of the injured is “grave”, she said.

The strike tore open the facade of a five-storey Soviet-era block of flats from the roof down and left a deep crater in the ground, images posted by the Russian emergency services showed.

Rescuers carried out one elderly casualty on a stretcher, footage posted by the emergency services showed.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission