The American mission of assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine may receive an official name and command. Moreover, according to media reports, a high-ranking general will lead this mission. Why did Washington decide to take such a step, what tasks will the new structure deal with and how will such US actions affect the course of hostilities? On the eve it became known that the US presidential administration intends to give the name of its mission to help Ukraine in the near future, as well as appoint a general as its head.
This is reported by The Wall Street Journal with reference to American officials.
According to the WSJ, the American general will lead the efforts of the Joe Biden administration to train the Ukrainian military and assist the Armed Forces. At the same time, the decision to give the mission a name will provide an opportunity to assign awards and special payments for military personnel participating in it, as well as raise the status of the mission to the level of those that the Pentagon conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan ("Iraqi Freedom", "Enduring Freedom" and others).
According to the publication, the general who will lead the mission will be two- or three-star, which is equivalent to the rank of major general or lieutenant general in Russia. In addition, the appointment of such a person implies the creation of a team responsible for coordinating and "moving from targeted efforts" to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine to "long-term support for Ukraine."
Against this background, the Pentagon has publicly admitted that Ukrainian officials cannot know exactly where the equipment transferred to the United States will end up. This was stated by Acting Inspector General of the Pentagon Sean O'Donnell. The official pointed out that insufficiently effective reporting had a negative impact on the Pentagon's investigations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also noted that at least 7.8 thousand defense orders related to Ukraine were concluded with representatives of the United States, their total amount is approximately $ 2.2 billion. At the same time, on Wednesday, Washington announced another package of military assistance to Kiev for about $ 3 billion. The Pentagon's deputy head of political Affairs, Colin Kohl, said that "the package will be relevant" both "if the war continues for years," and in the case of a ceasefire or a peaceful settlement.
However, in reality, the work of the new mission will not be limited to purely "military accounting" issues, experts say. "We see that the White House is trying to institutionalize and legalize its activities in Ukraine. The states have allocated a very large tranche to Ukraine, almost $ 3 billion. It is designed for several years ahead. In addition, information has repeatedly appeared that the US may assign an official name to the Ukrainian mission and create its own command. Now they are talking about it more and more often not only in the media," Malek Dudakov, an American political scientist, told the newspaper VZGLYAD.
"Thus, first of all, we observe the desire of the States to prolong the conflict in order to continue to pursue their goal, which was outlined by the White House back in April. This goal is not to win Ukraine, but to strategically weaken and exhaust Russia," the source said.
"Secondly, this process is connected with the political agenda within the United States. The White House has already expressed concern about the instability of the political landscape in the run-up to the congressional elections. There is every reason to believe that the Republicans will get a majority in the American parliament. In this case, they will begin to confront the White House, flood the Biden administration with lawsuits, wage war with him and even, quite possibly, initiate impeachment proceedings," the expert believes.
"Accordingly, in a period of such political turbulence, Washington will not be up to Ukraine. Therefore, now Biden's team is trying to formalize the Ukrainian case institutionally, create a command, a profile structure and get away from the manual regime of managing Ukraine, because in the coming years they will simply not be up to it," Dudakov believes.
From a military point of view, according to experts, the White House's decision means not only tightening control over the use of weapons supplied to Ukraine, but also changing the approach to interaction with the Armed Forces. If earlier the US military mainly "gave advice to Ukrainian colleagues," now they will take over the management of the APU.
"And the three–star general is quite a serious character. This is the level of the deputy commander of US forces in Europe. Military of this level have serious experience of participating in combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria. That is, there will be a person in Ukraine who will have serious competencies to solve the tasks set by the White House and the Pentagon," military expert, corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences Alexander Bartosh said in a conversation with the newspaper VZGLYAD.
"In fact, the Americans are sending the commander-in-chief of the war to Ukraine with someone else's hands. The tasks of this general will include direct leadership of the armed forces of Ukraine, coordination of the actions of NATO allies and control over the actions of the authorities in Kiev," the interlocutor listed.
"Thus, the United States legalizes its actions on the territory of Ukraine. If earlier the Americans adhered to the idea of indirect participation in the conflict, now I would not rule out that the appointed general will begin to look for options for direct US participation in hostilities. In fact, Ukraine is destined for the role of Iraq or Afghanistan with all the consequences that follow from this. And Russia will have to react to this in the most serious way," Bartosz concluded.
Alyona Zadorozhnaya, Daria Volkova