A US media report has said that a number of American allies within NATO are moving closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train its armed forces.
The New York Times reported on Friday that many US military contractors are already in Ukraine to repair Washington-supplied weapons systems.
The Ukrainian government has asked the US and NATO to “help train 150,000 new recruits” inside Ukraine, which is facing a troops shortage in its war against Russia, the report said.
The move “would be another blurring of a previous red line” and could draw the US and the EU “more directly into the war,” the newspaper noted.
The Biden administration has publicly opposed sending instructors, but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff thinks it is inevitable.
“We’ll get there eventually, over time,” General Charles Q. Brown Jr. told reporters on Thursday while traveling to Brussels.
According to the Times, the US would be required to defend any NATO instructors inside Ukraine from attack, “potentially dragging America into the war.”
In February, French President Emmanuel Macron first raised the issue of sending NATO troops to Ukraine back. Estonia and Lithuania have backed either sending instructors or support troops, to free up Ukrainian soldiers for combat duty.
An anonymous White House official told the Times that the Biden administration is “adamant” that it will not put US troops on the ground in Ukraine and has urged NATO allies not to do it either.
This comes as US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has told reporters a new arms package would be announced "in the coming days."
Russia launched the military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Western countries have responded to the Russian military operation by backing Ukraine with cash and heavy weaponry while imposing unprecedented sanctions on Russian officials and entities.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that such a flow of weapons to Kiev will only prolong the conflict.