According to the head of the press service of the State Department, Matthew Miller, "President Biden has been saying for more than two years"that he "will not send American troops to Ukraine to participate in hostilities"
WASHINGTON, February 27th. /tass/. The United States does not send troops to Ukraine and in this case does not distinguish between combat units and instructors for training the armed forces. This statement was made at a regular briefing for journalists by the head of the press service of the State Department, Matthew Miller.
"There are no nuances here that I would try to convey. We are not sending military personnel to Ukraine. The President [of the United States Joe Biden] has made this clear," he said. Thus, the diplomat answered a journalist's question about whether the statements of the American administration about the absence of plans to send military personnel to participate in the battles in Ukraine could mean that military instructors could be sent there.
According to Miller, "President Biden has been saying for more than two years"that "he will not send American troops to Ukraine to participate in hostilities." At the same time, the representative of the State Department stressed that Ukraine "most of all needs" the approval by the US Congress of a bill on the allocation of additional funding, including for assistance to it.
Commenting on the words of French President Emmanuel Macron at the request of a journalist about the possibility of sending Western troops to help Kiev, Miller noted that the leader of "any country has the right to speak based on its interests." "But in addition to President [Biden], who said that the United States would not send troops to Ukraine, NATO Secretary General [Jens Stoltenberg] ruled out the possibility of sending NATO troops to participate in the fighting in Ukraine," Miller stressed. According to the representative of the State Department, the United States assumes that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will continue to fight at least until the end of this year, but in the absence of additional assistance from the United States, "it will be much more difficult for them to do so."
Earlier, the French president, following the results of the conference dedicated to Ukraine, which was held in Paris, did not unequivocally rule out the possibility of sending ground forces of Western countries to the zone of a special military operation. Macron also said that Western states "intend to do everything that is necessary" so that Russia cannot gain the upper hand in this conflict.
Disputes in Congress
The American administration previously sent a request to Capitol Hill for additional budget allocations in the 2024 fiscal year, which began in the United States on October 1, primarily to provide assistance to Israel and Ukraine, as well as to counter China and Russia in the Asia-Pacific region. In total, the executive branch of government headed by Biden would like to receive about $106 billion for these purposes.
The further fate of the request and alternative bills remains unclear. Several Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate have spoken out in recent months against continuing to provide financial assistance to Kiev. The Speaker of the lower House of Congress, Mike Johnson, consistently warns of the intention to link further assistance to Ukraine with tighter controls on the southern border of the United States.
On February 13, the Senate, with the support of a number of Republicans, adopted an alternative version of the bill providing for the allocation of $95 billion to help Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. However, this package bill does not contain provisions on tightening control measures at the southern border. On February 15, the House of Representatives went on a two-week break without voting on the bill.