A Pentagon official told reporters on Monday that US military personnel have recently begun onsite inspections of US-provided weapons inside Ukraine, confirming a small US military presence on the ground.
“US personnel have recently resumed onsite inspections to assess weapon stocks in country whenever and wherever the security conditions allow,” the Pentagon official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The official said that the return of a “defense attaché and Office of Defense Cooperation personnel” to Ukraine has enabled the inspections. Both the defense attaché and Office of Defense Cooperation personnel are based at the US embassy in Kyiv.
Defense attachés are military officers stationed at US embassies that represent the Pentagon’s interests in the country. The Ukrainian government had previously said that defense attaché Brig. Gen. Garrick M. Harmon arrived in the country back in August.
According to the US Embassy in Kyiv’s website, the Office of Defense Cooperation “partners with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces to provide military equipment, training, familiarization events, and educational opportunities in order to support the modernization of Ukraine’s military and bilateral foreign policy objectives, while engaging at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.”
The Pentagon official did not offer any details about where the onsite inspections are taking place. “In terms of the inspections, I’m not going to get into specific details on locations of where these inspections have taken place,” the official said.
According to The Associated Press, the inspections are part of a broader State Department initiative to ensure weapons sent to Ukraine don’t end up in Russia’s hands or on the black market. But there has been virtually no oversight up to this point, and Finnish authorities said this week that criminal gangs are smuggling arms that have been sent to Ukraine.
The weapons inspectors based at the US Embassy in Kyiv is the only US military presence inside Ukraine that has been confirmed by Washington and demonstrates the US’s growing involvement in the war. The Intercept recently reported that US special operations forces and CIA personnel are also inside the country, but the US hasn’t officially acknowledged the covert campaign.
Ouch, now a lucky Russian strike and dead American.
Yes, that appears to be the point, provocation, a classic “bloody shirt” to continue to jingo the masses.
Here we go..,,
“The US Military Is Conducting Onsite Weapons Inspections Inside Ukraine The inspections are being conducted by US military personnel based at the US embassy in Kyiv”.
Only someone as stupid as Lloyd J Austin and as senile would allow American military personnel to be placed in harms way in Ukraine.
Biden already has the blood of Americans on his hands from the Afghanistan rout.
“A. A.” Austin.
He’s a kiss ass general. His skin color is irrelevant. His nose is no different than any other nose that gets buried up someone’s a$$.
“”Only someone as stupid as Lloyd J Austin and as senile would allow American military personnel to be placed in harms way in Ukraine.””
isn’t it military personnel’s job to be placed in harms way?
“”Biden already has the blood of Americans on his hands from the Afghanistan rout.””
right then. and never mind that Bush literally placed those americans into harms way in the first place. at least Biden removed them from there.
“Biden already has the blood of Americans on his hands from the Afghanistan rout.”
Make that 15 years of Bush and Obama; 4 unenthusiastic years of Trump, (who negotiated the US withdrawal that brought the Afghanistan clusterf*ck to an end); and Biden who executed the final withdrawal.
Go to Google for the respective number of casualties under each of these war criminals. As I understand it, Trump’s withdrawal agreement got the Taliban to stop attacking American servicemen for the last year of his presidency, and Biden was “responsible” for only the 13 servicemen killed in the suicide bomber attack at the Kabul airport, though the real credit for those deaths rests on the — incompetent — shoulders of Sec of Def Austin and in Kabul, General Frank McKenzie, the principals in charge of the withdrawal.
“4 unenthusiastic years of Trump”
‘For Trump, 2017 has already been an explosive year: The U.S. has said it dropped over 2,400 bombs on Afghanistan, up from 1,337 last year.’
‘More than three years ago, President Donald Trump announced that he would “lift restrictions and expand authorities” for United States troops in Afghanistan—giving the military a freer hand to order airstrikes. Now the cost of that lax approach is becoming clear.
Since 2017, the United States, its international allies, and the Afghan government have killed an average of 1,134 civilians per year, a nearly 95 percent increase from the average between 2007 and 2016’
‘In Trump’s first year of office, his administration eased two restrictions for drone strikes: removing the limitation that only allowed strikes on high-ranking militants and removing the previous vetting process for drone strikes.
The US also relaxed a restriction on its rules of engagement so that it no longer had to be in direct contact with enemy forces to conduct air strikes.’
Hate to see enthusiastic.
Fair enough, though I suspect the source of your quotes to be some anti-trump organ. Do me a favor and provide the source.
Are you saying you weren’t aware of Trump’s lifting of the rules of engagement? Or his increase in airstrikes in 2017? I figured that sh*t was just general knowledge. And those 10 people Biden murdered with that drone strike during the Afghanistan withdrawal were under Trump’s rules of engagement and wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
I see you’re still fixated on Trump, unable/unwilling to separate either the antecedent 15 years or the fact that Trump compelled psychopath Pompeo to negotiate the withdrawal deal.
I’ve long regarded you and I as being mostly on the same opposed-to-war page, but it seems I’m gonna have to wait a while till your TDS wears off.
The dead servicemen at the Kabul airport and the murdered aid worker and his children isn’t really on Biden. Nothing that happens while Biden fills the big chair is on Biden … because he is non compos mentis. It’s all on his Neocon handlers, with the drone strike revenge murder of the aid worker and his kids on Sec of Def Austin and General Frank McKenzie.
Let’s move on, nuclear annihilation looms.
I don’t have TDS. It’s people that fail to listen to 90% what conmes out of Trump’s f*cking piehole who are the ones suffereing from the delusional thinking. Trump cares about Trump. If he were half the peace proponant that his cult members think he is, I’d back him regardless of his advanced narcissm. Now pack your bags and get your a** to his next rally and tell me how much he talks about peace. Maybe in between calling for the execution of drug dealers and whoever is his target for attacks that day he might even broach the subject.
This is not new news. It’s standard Security Cooperation/Assistance practice which Embassies are deeply involved with.
“The Arms Export Control Act (AECA) requires the U.S. government (USG) to conduct End-Use Monitoring (EUM) to ensure that foreign end-users are complying with the requirements agreed with by foreign partners via government-to-government transfers or imposed by the U.S. government for direct commercial sale transfers (DCS) with respect to use, transfers, and security of defense articles and defense services and such articles and services are used only for the purposes for which they were furnished. USG EUM can include scheduled inspections, physical inventories, general inquiries, and reviews of accountability records by the U.S. government. The end-use of U.S.-origin defense articles should also be in accordance with international law and consistent with any agreements or licenses under which such articles have been transferred. The United States remains committed to expediting, when possible, defense transfers to U.S. allies and partners, while it also seeks to prevent unauthorized access to U.S.-origin defense technologies by hostile state and non-state actors.
The purpose of the EUM program is to improve accountability with respect to defense articles sold, leased, or exported under the AECA or Foreign Assistance Act. USG EUM is an important component to protecting sensitive U.S. military and intelligence technologies and ensuring American warfighters retain their military edge over their adversaries.”
And training the Ukraine forces on how to use the new toys in its arsenal, not to mention assisting in targeting logistics.
That’s a separate issue not part of this topic.
The US military has all the gear and no idea , having never won a modern day war proves their INCOMPETENCE.
This must be being done to prove to the naysayers that there is oversight. Got to quell any nonsensical talk about stopping the billions from flowing.
Yep just how the mission creep in Vietnam started , when the war started there where 50,000 US adviser`s in Vietnam , not that it did them any good because they LOST the war .
That does sound like a token control in response to public pressure and critic. It is a joke to think that a few people stationed with the embassy could possibly inspect enough to make a dent.
This inspection protocol seems to admit that the government of Ukraine is too corrupt to be worth supporting.
Dude. You’re right. But you can also conclude that we couldn’t corrupt them further than they already are by insanely giving them tens of billions of dollars. Just brilliant! (sarcasm)
I suspect that the “inspection” is little more than kabuki intended to create a “narrative” of fiscal diligence/responsibility. Slava Ukraine!
The US is just as corrupt as Ukraine. Only a tiny fraction of the billions in “Ukraine support” goes to Ukraine support. Most is siphoned off by the MIC, which then provides a payoff to the US politicians who voted for the “support”.
The weapons to Ukraine get sold on the black market (watch for the deadly problems that will create around the world), the proceeds of which then go into the usual offshore bank accounts, while the looted payments to the Ukrainian govt follow. The Ukrainian criminals are going to take as much as they can while the taking is good, and then try to escape — quietly one would assume — to their pre-configured sanctuaries.
It’s a total grift on both ends.
And the ultimate icing is that it probably leads to less total death and destruction than if the system actually worked.
We live in a Kafka-esque world.
Only the US can label a military action that could bring us nuclear Armageddon as an “educational opportunity.” But hey, we claimed dropping nuclear weapons on civilians was needed to save 10 million lives. (sarcasm)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-atomic-bomb-saved-millionsincluding-japanese-11596663957
the inspections are .. to ensure weapons sent to Ukraine don’t end up in Russia’s hands or on the black market. But there has been virtually no oversight up to this point, and Finnish authorities said this week that criminal gangs are smuggling arms that have been sent to Ukraine.
and there it is = black market
“… Defense attachés are military officers stationed at US embassies that represent the Pentagon’s interests in the country…”
Wow. Just, wow.
🙂 ;-}
Pentagon is egging for an engagement? Those US military personnel are fair game to Russian attack.
…It starts with “inspections”….
…It ends with nuclear armagedddon….