The U.S. military will send 12 F-16 fighter jets and 300 service personnel to Poland this week for a training exercise whose scope was expanded in response to the crisis in neighboring Ukraine, Poland's Defense Minister said.

Tomasz Siemoniak said the training exercise, centered on the Lask Air Force Base in central Poland, was originally to have been smaller and involved only transport aircraft. He said Poland requested it be beefed up after Russia's intervention in Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula.

Standing at a news briefing alongside the minister, U.S. ambassador to Poland Stephen Mull said: “When we face such a dramatic challenge for our security, we need to reassure our allies that our security guarantees are valid.”

Meanwhile, Russia’s Western Military District began large-scale air defense drills last week at its southern testing range of Kapustin Yar on the backdrop of further escalation of tensions with the West over Ukraine.

Kapustin Yar, located some 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of the Ukrainian border, will host about 3,500 troops and over 1,000 units of military hardware for about a month. The exercise will culminate with live-firing drills, involving S-300, Buk-M1 and other air defense systems.

“It is for the first time that all air defense units from the district, including coastal defenses of the Northern Fleet, have gathered in one place,” said the district’s spokesman, Col. Oleg Kochetkov.

“It is the largest-ever exercise held by air defense units of the Western Military District,” Kochetkov said, adding that the drills were part of a regular combat training cycle.

Source: Reuters; RIA Novosti

Photo (File):  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (R) shakes hands with Poland's Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak in front of an F-16 aircraft at the Lask Air Force Base in Lask November 5, 2013 (Reuters)