Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown told reporters on Monday that the US currently has “no plans” to send troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces but suggested it could happen once the war is over.
“Right now, there are no plans to bring US trainers into Ukraine,” Brown said. “Once this conflict is over and we’re in a better place, then I would suspect we would be able to bring trainers back in.”
His comments came after The New York Times reported that Ukraine had requested NATO send training troops and that Western countries were “inching closer” to obliging the request. In that report, Brown was quoted as saying US trainers would be sent to Ukraine “eventually,” but it appears he was talking about once the war was over, although a future peace deal with Russia could prohibit NATO troops on Ukrainian territory.
Other NATO countries are considering deploying troops to Ukraine, including France, Estonia, and Lithuania, despite the risk of provoking a direct clash with Russia.
One thing the US is considering is sending up to 60 “military advisers” to Ukraine, according to a report published by POLITICO last month. US officials said they would support the Office of Defense Cooperation based at the US embassy in Kyiv to help with “logistics and oversight efforts for the weapons the US is sending Ukraine.”
Back in October 2022, the Pentagon announced that ODC and defense attaché personnel were back in Ukraine after being absent for the first few months of Russia’s invasion. The Pentagon said at the time that the personnel were conducting “onsite” inspections of US-provided weapons.
It’s unclear how many ODC and defense attaché personnel are in Ukraine, but sending up to 60 advisors would mark a significant escalation in US involvement in the war. As of March 2023, the US also had 14 special operations soldiers in Ukraine.
Are there any efforts being made for neutral or alternates to perhaps mediate the situation in an effort to defuse this?
Didn’t we do something similar in Indochina back in the day after the French decamped? Are we seeing the first public mention of a MACU-SOG? Someone better start reading some books and talking to old hands from Indochina to get an idea of how that earlier outfit turned out- apparently no one in Washington has a clue.
Chomsky always made the case that they considered it a victory. All of Indo-China was so thoroughly FUBAR’d it’s had to become a cheap labor pool for Nike et.al., … for US predatory Capitalism.
MACU-SOG?? please explain.
Office of Defense Cooperation based at the US embassy in Kyiv
Clearly this is not a diplomatic facility but a legitimate military target.
Top US General: Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, ….
(Four star general – four blahs)
1) He’s lying – because all Pentagon spokesmen lie as a habit.
2) There won’t be a Ukraine when the war ends to send troops to.
Another pointless PR exercise. If any US troops go there, they die. And they know it.
America tend to secretly push advisors into countries before the situation spins out of control. Then we end up with situations like Afghanistan and Vietnam!
Over 50,000 dead in Vietnam and if the proxy war in Ukraine goes hot we are talking an extinction level event.