![]() If Russian troops crossed the border, the officials said, the United States could offer offensive weaponry and training. The United States is also moving toward providing Ukraine with battlefield intelligence that could help the country more quickly respond to an invasion, senior administration officials said.īut all of that aid has been calibrated not to provoke Putin, officials said. The assistance has also included patrol boats and communications equipment. The United States has provided about $2.5 billion in military aid to Kyiv, including anti-tank missiles and radar that enables the Ukrainian military to better spot sources of artillery fire. Since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, successive US administrations have taken pains to limit military support to Ukraine largely to defensive weaponry. The United States would almost certainly supply weapons, the officials said. Beyond logistical support and weapons, the United States and NATO allies could also provide medical equipment, services and even sanctuary during Russian offensives. In discussions with allies, senior Biden officials have also made clear that the CIA (covertly) and the Pentagon (overtly) would both seek to help any Ukrainian insurgency.Īdministration officials interviewed this week said that plans to help Ukrainian insurgents could include providing training in nearby countries that are part of NATO’s eastern flank: Poland, Romania and Slovakia, which could enable insurgents to slip in and out of Ukraine. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have warned their Russian counterparts in recent telephone calls that any swift Russian victory in Ukraine would probably be followed by a bloody insurgency similar to the one that drove the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. ![]() “The level of military support” for a Ukrainian insurgence, Stavridis said, “would make our efforts in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union look puny by comparison.”īoth Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. support for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion there in the late 1970s and 1980s, before the rise of the Taliban. “And if it turned into a Ukrainian insurgency, Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.” “If Putin invades Ukraine with a major military force, US and NATO military assistance - intelligence, cyber, anti-armour and anti-air weapons, offensive naval missiles - would ratchet up significantly,” said James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO. On Friday, hackers brought down several Ukrainian government websites after days of talks between Russia and the West about the crisis.īut Biden administration officials have begun signalling to Russia, which has massed about 100,000 troops at its borders with Ukraine, that even if it managed to swiftly capture territory, Putin would eventually find the costs of an invasion prohibitively expensive in terms of military losses. Nor is it clear what Russia’s next move might be, or whether Putin intends to launch a cyberattack. President Joe Biden has not determined how the United States might arm insurgents in Ukraine who would conduct what would amount to a guerrilla war against Russian military occupation.
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