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Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,A Ukrainian soldier outside Donetsk in the east this week
US President Joe Biden is to send extra troops to Europe this week amid continuing fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, White House officials say.
Some 2,000 troops will be sent from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Poland and Germany, and a further 1,000 already in Germany will go to Romania.
Moscow denies planning to invade but has deployed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders.
It fiercely opposes Ukraine joining the US-led Nato military alliance.
The crisis comes eight years after Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula and backed a bloody rebellion in the eastern Donbas region.
Moscow accuses the Ukrainian government of failing to implement an international deal to restore peace to the east - where Russian-backed rebels control swathes of territory and at least 14,000 people have been killed since 2014.
The new US deployments will not fight in Ukraine but will ensure the defence of US allies.
The deployment is in addition to the 8,500 troops the Pentagon put on alert last month to be ready to deploy to Europe if needed, the agency says.
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