At their meeting on Thursday, NATO leaders will accept the deployment of four more battle units in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, according to US Ambassador to NATO Julie Smith.

She stated that they are “not only national forces,” and that further information would be released on Thursday.

Smith said NATO is discussing its medium- and long-term troop presence in its eastern flank at an Atlantic Council event.

She stated that “all possibilities are on the table,” including permanent basing.

Smith said that Poland’s plan for a NATO peacekeeping force in Ukraine isn’t “dead in the water,” but that “a lot of open-ended issues” remain, and that “allies want to know more about what Poland is proposing here.”

“This sort of creative thinking is something we want to foster,” she added. “When an ally brings up an idea in our conversations here, no one ever shirks or turns away.”