Pentagon weighs deploying special forces to guard Kyiv Embassy

U.S. military and diplomatic officials are weighing plans to send special forces troops to Kyiv to guard the newly reopened embassy there, proposals that would force the Biden administration to balance a desire to avoid escalating the U.S. military presence in the war zone against fears for the safety of American diplomats, U.S. officials said.

President Biden has yet to be presented with the proposal. But if he approves it, troops would be deployed only for the defence and security of the embassy, which lies within range of Russian missiles, U.S. officials said. Their presence inside Ukraine would mark an escalation from Mr. Biden’s initial pledge that no American troops will be sent into the country, The World Street Journal reports.

The administration seeks to balance concerns within the State Department that a robust, conspicuous security posture at the embassy could provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin with the need to deter a potential attack on American personnel—and have sufficient forces to extract them if fighting breaks out again in Kyiv. Russia continues to target the Ukrainian capital with occasional airstrikes or shelling, even as the city has begun to return to normal.

For now, the State Department will furnish its own security, from a corps of guards in the Diplomatic Security Service, for the embassy in Kyiv.

Preliminary planning is under way at the Pentagon and the State Department for possibly dozens of special forces troops who could augment security at the embassy, or could stand by to deploy if needed. In addition to using special forces troops to provide security at the embassy, officials are considering restoring a Marine security guard detachment, like those that normally provide security at embassies around the world. No formal proposals have been sent so far to Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley or Mr. Biden.

“We are in close touch with our colleagues at the State Department about potential security requirements now that they have resumed operations at the embassy in Kyiv,” said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby in a statement. “But no decisions have been made, and no specific proposals have been debated at senior levels of the department about the return of U.S. military members to Ukraine for that or any other purpose.”

Over time, and depending on how the conflict in the east unfolds, U.S. officials envision a larger presence for the U.S. to administer the tens of billions of dollars of weaponry that have poured into the country in recent months. And some U.S. military officials would like to return to Ukraine the special forces and other troops that were conducting train-and-advise operations for the Ukrainian military.

The embassy in Kyiv was all but shut by the time Russia invaded Ukraine Feb. 24, its diplomatic staff largely relocated 340 miles west to Poland, with a small group making short trips to a makeshift diplomatic post in Lviv, just inside the Ukraine border.