In its final months, President Joe Biden’s administration has decided to allow US defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair weapons provided by the Pentagon, US officials told Reuters on Friday, a significant In a policy change that aims to aid Kiev in its fight against Russia.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the contractors would be small in number and located away from the front lines. They will not participate in the war.
They will help ensure that U.S.-provided equipment “can be rapidly repaired if damaged and provide maintenance as needed,” the official said.
Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the United States has given Kiev billions of dollars in arms. But Kiev had to either take US-supplied weapons out of the country for heavy repairs or rely on video-conferencing and other creative solutions to fix those systems inside the country.
Officials say repairs have sometimes slowed in the past due to sanctions and have proven more difficult as the U.S. has provided Kiev with more complex systems such as F-16 fighter jets and Patriot air defenses.
A second US official told Reuters that much of the equipment in the country was damaged and not being used.
The move is the latest easing of sanctions by Biden’s administration, which has sought to help Ukraine defend itself against Moscow’s 2 1/2-year-old aggression against nuclear-armed Russia without getting directly involved.
A third US official said the decision would bring the Pentagon in line with the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development, which already have US contractors in Ukraine.
The official said no U.S. troops would be needed to protect contractors in Ukraine, and issues such as security and risk mitigation would be the responsibility of companies contracting with the Pentagon.
The official said some US defense contractors have already gone to Ukraine to service a small number of weapons that were not being provided by the Pentagon.
The first official said, noting that there are already “a wide range of U.S. companies” that have employees in Ukraine completing contracts for the Ukrainian government, there would not be a substantial increase in U.S. company employees working on the ground. Will happen.
This decision has come at a crucial time in the conflict. Russian forces are advancing at their fastest pace since Ukraine first repelled their offensive on the outskirts of Kiev in early 2022. Ukraine, for its part, has launched its first major incursion into Russian territory.
Still, it’s unclear how sustainable the policy change will be with so little time left in Biden’s administration. President-elect Donald Trump has criticized the scale of US military and financial aid to Kiev and vowed to quickly end the war with Russia without prompting. Trump will take office on January 20.
As by far the largest contributor to Kiev’s war effort, US support has been essential to Ukraine’s survival against a much larger and better equipped Russian enemy.
Moscow’s forces have captured about a fifth of Ukraine, and that is increasing pressure on Kiev, which has faced problems fielding a strong fighting force to withstand Russia’s continued attacks – recently. This has been strengthened by the involvement of North Korean troops.
Ukraine has called on the West to lift a ban on the use of missiles to strike deep into Russia, which Kiev says is necessary to deter long-range Russian attacks.
But Biden’s administration has not announced any changes to that policy, which officials say may not be enough to turn the tide in the war, and which Moscow says would escalate the conflict.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
