NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops to Ukraine to train the country’s military, a move that once again blurs previous red lines and brings the U.S. and Europe closer together more directly. potentially leading to war.
Ukraine’s manpower shortage has reached a crisis point, and its battlefield position has deteriorated significantly in recent weeks as Russia has taken advantage of delays in the delivery of American weapons to accelerate its advance. As a result, Ukrainian officials asked U.S. and NATO officials to help train 150,000 new soldiers closer to the front lines for faster deployment.
So far, the United States has said no, but Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that sending NATO trainees seems inevitable. “Eventually, we’ll get there over time,” he said.
For now, he said, any efforts inside Ukraine would “put many NATO trainers at risk” and would use valuable air defenses to protect the trainers, rather than Ukraine’s critical infrastructure near the battlefield. He said it is likely to mean a decision on whether to use it or not. General Brown briefed reporters on a plane en route to a NATO meeting in Brussels.
As part of NATO, the United States could be obligated under the alliance’s treaties to help defend against any attacks on trainer aircraft, potentially drawing the United States into war.
The White House has been adamant that it does not intend to keep U.S. troops, including trainers, on the ground in Ukraine, and senior administration officials reiterated that position Thursday. The administration also asked NATO allies not to send troops.
However, French President Emmanuel Macron said in February that “nothing should be ruled out” about sending Western troops to Ukraine. Mr Macron has since doubled down on his own comments, including calls from senior US diplomats to stop.
Estonia’s government has not ruled out sending troops to western Ukraine and taking over a rear role that would allow Ukrainian forces to go to the front lines, Estonia’s national security adviser said this week.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis supported Macron’s position in an interview with the Guardian newspaper last week. “Our armed forces have been training Ukrainians in Ukraine before the war,” he said, adding: “Therefore, it may be quite possible to return to this tradition.”
The U.S. military has been training Ukrainian forces in Poland, Germany and the United States, but withdrawing troops from Ukraine will take time. U.S. officials now acknowledge that current training by the Ukrainian military is inadequate and that better and faster training is needed to thwart a Russian move expected this summer.
The United States once helped run a NATO training program in Yavoriv in western Ukraine, but American troops withdrew from there at the start of the war.
U.S. and allied training has not always been successful. Before the Ukrainian counteroffensive last summer, U.S. soldiers provided training to Ukrainian troops in Germany, including in maneuver warfare and demining. But learning how to coordinate and use tanks, artillery, and infantry is difficult, especially in his short 12-week period. Further complicating matters, Ukrainians face a much different and more intense battlefield than the one American forces have fought in recent years.
Military officials say moving training to Ukraine could allow U.S. trainers to more quickly gather information about innovations occurring on the front lines in Ukraine, allowing them to adapt their training. It is acknowledged that there is.
NATO last month asked Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, to come up with ways for the alliance to do more to reduce risk in support of Ukraine. U.S. officials said Wednesday that they may train Ukrainian troops in Lviv, near the western border with Poland.
However, Russia has already bombed Lviv, and a few weeks ago a Russian cruise missile hit critical infrastructure in Lviv.
Some officials say large numbers of Ukrainian recruits may still be sent to vast training grounds in Germany and Poland.
Logistically, however, troops must be transported to the U.S. military training range in Grafenwohr, Germany, undergo complex exercises aimed at teaching combined arms warfare, and then be deployed to the front lines. It is necessary to send it about 1,000 miles through Lviv and Kiev.
“When Russia first invaded Crimea in 2014, we sent additional troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces in western Ukraine, and we continued to do so until 2022, when we withdrew in fear. ” said Evelyn Farkas. , a former top official at Ukraine’s Pentagon during the Obama administration. “With manpower shortages on the Ukraine front, it should come as no surprise to anyone that NATO members and Alliance leadership are considering ways to once again provide support from the rear.”
Other NATO allies, including Britain, Germany and France, are working to base defense contractors in Ukraine to help build and repair weapons systems closer to combat zones, a move military officials say It is described as a “positive correction” approach. Current and former U.S. defense officials say the White House is currently reviewing a ban on U.S. defense contractors entering Ukraine, but a small number of U.S. defense contractors working on specific weapons systems, such as the Patriot air defense, are working under State Department officials. people have already been allowed to enter the country.
“There is an element of allied misconduct in the fact that we are providing Ukraine with large amounts of Western equipment, but we are not giving them the resources to maintain it,” retired army officer said Lieutenant Colonel and Ukrainian-born Alexander S. Vindman. American Veteran.
