US Army General Ben Hodges today confirmed that a battalion of US ground troops will be heading to Ukraine next month to train Ukrainian soldiers to fight against “Russian and rebel” forces.
The Pentagon had been pushing such “training exercises” since summer of 2014, and officials had confirmed late last month that they were intending to do so this spring. The training will be in the far west of the country, near Lviv.
Pentagon officials have been claiming a “Russian invasion” of eastern Ukraine as the justification for their involvement, though the fighting is between the Ukrainian military and ethnic Russian rebels along the border.
Either way, the administration and the Pentagon both seem keen to get involved further in the war, with Gen. Hodges’ comments coming at the same time that the White House is openly talking about sending arms to the Ukrainian military with the aim of, to quote President Obama, further isolating Russia.
The effort is particularly poorly timed since it is also concurrent to France and Germany working with Russia on a ceasefire aimed at ending the war. While the US claims to support the idea of ending the war in theory, all policy decisions are overtly designed not only to escalate the civil war, but to transform it into a more direct proxy war between the US and Russia.
No they are training the Ukraine soldiers to fight Ukrainians this is a CIVIL war, with the two Super Powers providing weapons! A Civil war instigated not by Russia but by the US, who funded the Coup that ousted an elected Government! The US did what it is illegal to do in the United States, have a foreign national or indeed government, fund the overthrow of the Government (its called treason in the US) as well as fund the election for the over throwers!
Here again, this blogger wants to victimise the victims. Because Nuland violated Ukrainian sovereignty by overthrowing the elected president, the Ukrainians have to submit to having their sovereignty violated a second time by leting Putin grab as yet undefined chunks of their territory. That's both politically absurd and morally repellent. The US caused the problem. It should fix it by restoring Ukraine's sovereignty to what it was before Nuland violated it. That means kicking Putin out.
By the way, it isn't a civil war. The people fighting the Ukrainian military are not Ukrainian citizens. They are Russians sent in from Russia. Private contractor's mercenaries. Cossacks, according to French TV. The Cossacks, incidentally, were, in an earlier age, the people who carried out the pogroms.
"By the way, it isn't a civil war. The people fighting the Ukrainian military are not Ukrainian citizens."
Hey, finally something we agree on! You're absolutely right. Citizens of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics ceased being Ukrainian citizens when they seceded from Ukraine. The only Ukrainian citizens in those areas are foreign invaders.
Going by the resounding success the US has had at training the Iraqi and Afghan armies, this should go well.
Ukraine is a European country. That's the big difference. NATO has done very well re-training the ex-Warsaw Pact armies and the Ukrainians have the same get-up-and-go mentality as the Poles, so I don't see why there would be a problem. Indeed, NATO or its European successor could very easily re-train the Russian army after the fall of Putin.
Very well for the usual profiteers.
As you said it will be a wast of time and our money, but it may lead to a trip wire that brings US sons and daughters into the action.
US desparetly wants conflict to continue. US as master "supporters of chaos and wars around the planet" may be succesfull…..again. Perhaps only open revolt by citizens in western countries supporting US imperial strategy could stop this ongoing madness….
Russia under Putin means Peace, US under corporate and banksters interest means endless wars of destruction…
Elepfant in the room aggressive Israels régime is another "eso" in US sleeve!!!!….
World is in extremaly dangerous condicion…,,Russia cant step back anymore, US dollar nearly gone,
people in 4 corners awaiken to slow to the fact, that those running the World are pretty much alive and do not care for them what so ever….Pedro CR
It looks like we haven't been closer to WWIII since the early eighties, and that was thirty years ago.
If Iraq and Afghanistan are examples of USG training
(troops), Russia and Ukraine have nothing to worry
about.
As always, this will end up costing USG taxpayers
millions of dollars that will be wasted, skimmed,
stolen, and squandered by war profiteers.
Billions…not millions.
To paraphrase Everett Dirkson; "a trillion here, a trillion there. First thing you know, you are talking some real money".
But because the Treasury is empty, it isn't real money, is it?
US just left $700M worth of gear in Yemen. And, planning to re-arm Iraqi Army II to enable the lovers to leave US tax payers paid for gear all over the desert when Iraqi Army II runs at first site of ISIS. Do you see a pattern here?
Yeah, the US taxpayers are really, really stupid for re-electing these idiots again and again. I don't expect things to change – and if things do change, they won't be for the good…another pattern.
US arms will be going to fight the war against Ukrainians declared by their own government. These toadies and oligarchs can't get their own soldiers to fight the 'separatists', who beat the Ukrainian army hands down anyway. Therefore the US arms will first be used to suppress the spontaneous uprising in western Ukraine – where the people are saying one big NO to war, conscription, oligarch corruption and corporate austerity. So defenceless civilians will be gunned down with US arms by right sector thugs who are too afraid to fight armed and battle-hardened separatists. Whoop it up for democracy and freedom!
Empire USA is the ultimate conclusion of democracy, with the voting majority hoarding all the wealth, with you being brainwashed unto stupidity if you grasp not the reality of it.
For morality does not reside in the brains of man, but would you believe in that which we call intelligent design.
Quick! Send in the troops! There's a rumor that peace might break out!
Wealth hoarding upper half — Strikes again
Comes now a new ceasefire agreement between the fascist coup government and the Republic of East Ukraine. How very sad, for in just a few weeks the freedom fighters would have physically removed all the fascist troops and stand powerful and free with deadly force sufficient to stop all aggressors.
Problem is, Putin with his $144 billion is just as fearful of independent freedom fighters as is the fascist coup, for a working man’s rebellion, who in the wealth hoarding upper half of society can stomach such a thing?
People of USA wake up
All accross the American internet, and this article is just one of the many, I detect a whiff of panic among Putin's American supporters. That suggests that they beleive that Putin is once again to employ Israeli tactics and not honour whatever deal has been reached in Minsk and that, therefore, the slow countdown to an ex-Yugoslav type war which Putin cannot win has begun. Training the Ukrainian army is thus not "poorly timed". It is a perfect complement to the EU efforts to find a face-saving way for Putin to back out of the corner he's painted himself into. If he's willing to back off, so much the better. If not, there's the big stick. Equally, it is very much in Ukraine's interest to escalate the fighting, thereby forcing Putin to choose between letting the Ukrainians kick the mercenaries out and sending in his whole rickety conscript army, much of which will probably desert.
Another win for the neocons. And the world is one step closer to total destruction.
Russians must be celebrating already, show me one army the US trained and won anything? Just look at Afghanistan and Iraq armies. what a joke, how can you train anyone to kill his brother?
Of course it's just a stall, so that the Ukrainian military can regroup and rearm. As others have said, the US (which is to say the Neocons) wants nothing to do with an orderly and peaceful restructuring of Ukraine. The US wants either total surrender of the east and consolidation of the victory they thought they had in the bag with the coup, or Russia all in militarily so that they can be discredited.
Putin must know that the US will not stop. It is not in the Neocons' nature, or in their plan. Putin should get it over with now, as fast as he can. BEFORE THE US CAN GET IN THERE IN FORCE. If ever there was a justifiable case for preemption, this is it. He should order tank columns to sweep down from the northeast and northwest and encircle Kiev, fill the sky with jets and attack helicopters and drones if he has them, so that nothing can escape by air, tighten the noose, drop in ten thousand fully-equipped speznaz, decapitate the regime and liquidate every nazi they can find. He should then announce elections by oblast/region to be held IMMEDIATELY — which is to say right the f*ck now — in "the public square", count the votes immediately right there in public view, tell the Ukranians to try real hard to keep their new leadership from raping them this time like the last ones did, and then beat it out of there, leaving only a few speznaz around temporarily to guard the gas transit pipelines and certain other strategic facilities. Instant federalization, instant electoral legitimacy, and LIndsey and mad John with dicks in hand, fuming and spittle flying.
Ya gotta have a dream…..
This is truly despicable. US troops will train the neo-Nazi army of Kiev with our tax dollars.
Putin might act quickly to finish it before we get our FUBAR on. He might not afford us the luxury Iraq did by standing by and watching us load up on the border while doing nothing. Then we may see how the tough guys get going.