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The Defense Department announced both a new $400 million weapons package for Kiev and the new military command, based in Germany, overseeing the proxy war with Russia
Written by Connor Freeman. Originally published on AntiWar
The Pentagon announced that it is setting up a new command, based in Germany, to oversee the training and equipping of Ukraine’s military during its fight with Russia, the New York Times reported on Friday. The command is named Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, or SAG-U.
The news came soon after the announcement of another $400 million arms package to Ukraine, including tanks and drones. These weapons will be used to retake territory Russia has annexed, according to Kiev. Current and former US officials told the Times these moves suggest that Washington “expects the threat from Russia to Ukraine and its neighbors to persist for many years.”
Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, told reporters the new command will “ensure we are postured to continue supporting Ukraine over the long term.” She added the US remains “committed to Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
Discussions about a formal command to oversee operations in Ukraine began earlier this year. SAG-U will be led by a “high-ranking” general with a roughly 300-person staff.
A possible reason for this decision may be to obscure the level of funding going to the proxy war, making it more difficult for Americans and journalists to discern where the money comes from and just how much is being spent.
As Kelley Vlahos, Editorial Director at Responsible Statecraft, has written,
[Dan Caldwell, senior advisor to Concerned Veterans of America] suggests this could allow the Pentagon to carve out a protected fund for the war. “Establishing a formal, named-mission or military task-force specifically for Ukraine could further open the door to moving funding for the war in Ukraine to the Overseas Contingency Operations budget, which is essentially the Pentagon’s slush fund. That could be one of the primary motivations here – the Pentagon wants a steady stream of funding from a source that Congress has shown a lack of willingness to properly oversee.”
Officially, since the war began, the Pentagon has authorized nearly $19 billion in direct military aid for Ukraine, though data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy suggests the real figure is closer to $28 billion. In pursuit of Russia’s “strategic defeat,” Washington has pledged over $67 billion in support for Kiev altogether, primarily in weapons – a figure greater than Moscow’s entire 2021 military budget.
Members of both parties in Congress are reportedly planning another massive aid package for Ukraine that is said to cost at least $50 billion, which would bring total spending on the war to more than $115 billion. Though President Joe Biden has acknowledged the world is closer to nuclear “Armageddon” than any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, Washington has refused to engage in diplomacy with Russia. US officials have declared that they “ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table,” while the Pentagon has vowed to exploit the war to “weaken” Russia. Last month, for the first time, the Pentagon revealed that there is a small US troop presence in Ukraine.
Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on the Conflicts of Interest podcast. His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also appeared on Liberty Weekly, Around the Empire, and Parallax Views. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96.
Then I guess Iran will have enough time to get nuclear weapons and will most likely do it before Trump becomes president in 2024.
Nukes are a lie dummy. Just more WW2 Jew lies to brainwash gullible little minds.
Yupp – to many loose ends.
Your brain is a loose end.
I don’t know if Trump will become president, I feel like DeSantis is behind the eight ball for this one, the time is right, anti-wokeism is at an all time high and people want strong pushback against it.
There will however be civil war in the future of the U.S regardless of whether or not a Democrat or a Republican candidate wins.
As long as it takes to do WHAT?
To exterminate the Ukrainians by Russian bombs 😅.
To bring Europe into a poverty worse than Africa if European people continue their line if obedience towards USA.
Europe is dead. The EU is fatally wounded. The only thing left now is to determine how swift and chaotic will be the descent into fragmentation. The best thing that could happen now would be a controlled transition away from the Euro and into a EEC like structure, but even this might be a pipe dream.
LIGHTD OUT FOR UKRAINE///ENOUGH IS ENOUGH !! Being a NATO/US bitch comes with a price !!
yes you are correct. but the good thing is that once russia is defeated, we will get all the money vack that we had to spend on weapons, equipment and whatnot. we simply share the russian territory among us. China, USA, Europe….. Turkey, everyone will get a piece “colony” there. Its anyways such a waste of Ressources to give this huge country with all its treasures to a few million humans- not even double the population of germany. Its absolutely Time to change that right now.
Such anger. It’s almost like teenager angst. Then you spout all those crack induced delusions. Mind you, feel free to troll away, this isn’t really directed at you. It’s directed at who might be reading the unfiltered verborheia you spouted. Here we have a classical case of MSM indoctrination. Absolute and proud ignorance of any aspects related to history, modicum of knowledge on geopolitical or military affairs. The personal need for some justice determined by him or herself, in the form of the destruction of a country, Russia in this case. Typos, urgency, the need to share his or her anger in public. A classical and narcisistic extreme of God complex. For the fellow readers here, this is a classical manifestation of MSM induced trance, and is known very well. It was clearly illustrated in George Orwell’s 1984, in the form of the 5 minutes of hate. 5 minutes where the populace could vent all their anger at an imaginary enemy. In this case, rather than Emmanuel Goldstein, we have Vladimir Putin as the target of the populace’s anger. It’s truly fascinating to see how information architecture works in shaping public perception to the point where the populace becomes absolutely subdued and gullible. The perfect useful idiots.
Europeans are out of their minds to go along with America. America instigates a conflict in their backyard, caused prices of oil and natural gas prices reach new highs, and yet the Europeans come back slavishly to the Americans. The Americans are disgusting for causing this, but thew European leaders are far more despicable since they don’t even act in the interests of their people.
Indeed it is,they are all signed up to the US fourth Reich like the coward filth they are.
No, we are not.
We just cannot fight the State power, that’s all.
Not Europeans but those who hold power in Europe. Those like Annalena.
A HQ in germany is a threat equivalent as Cuba situation. We are seconds before midnight on doomsday clock.
HQ in Germany for a front in Ukraine!? It would be like a HQ in Irkutsk for the other side 🤣.
Time for Russia to make those bastards pay on their own soil,send agaents to blow the place up.
Right. But we hear that since months and the morons in moscow still hold back Masses of troops and armament, while brave russian and donbas fighters and civilians fight, die and bleed daily.
Russia should transfer some nukes to it’s Iranian brother with this the focus of the world will be on a highly possible and possibly disastrous Iran-US /Israel nuclear confrontation and away from Ukraine an alternative would be Syria to put pressure on the Jewish state and indirect on the US, there are some possibilities but Russia will definitely have to be more proactive and aggressive to defend it self from US warmongering
Not only. Sadly Moscow still dont have the Balls to send a few nukes to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Serbia, Venezuela and Cuba. Than the zio khasarian, transatlantic and globalist scum and parasites would shit theyr pants like never before.
Russia invaded and took the whole rich part of E-Ukraine with all its gold mines, wheat, gas and oil reserves, and left the crumbs, waste land and cabbage to US.
What the f… did people expect? You though Pentagon was the Salvation Army yes?? This is what you thought!
Several fundamental misconceptions on your part. I take it you’re from the EU. Yet i suspect you will keep silent on the guarantees given to Russia in 2014 before Yanukovich was deposed in the Maidan coup, instigated and orchestrated by the US. Yanukovich was elected in legitimate elections, confirmed by the OSCE, with international observers, including US, EU observers. A solution was found and France, Germany were guarantors, yet they failed. Maidan happened. Obama was even in public proudly saying how they funded the color revolution to the tune of 5 billion USD. Then Minsk agreements while you were silent when civilians were being massacred. Civilians in the same Eastern Ukraine you now whine to the cue of the world’s smallest violin, complaining that the gold mines, industry, all, is now gone. Yet 8 years of civilian massacres are not in your mind. Then Minsk II, and again, France, Germany, were signatories. All the talk about the EU having an independent foreign policy, and after 8 years of charade, Poroschenko said in public the deals were nothing but a ruse to sanction Russia and give time to Ukraine to arm. EU credibility in terms of foreign policy, fatally wounded. Then the NS1, NS2 sabotage. The EU was blaming Russia initially, the MSM was in a frenzy. The EU and EC in a frency promising to pursuit the culprits to the last consequences. Yet here we are. Crickets. Nothing. Silence in the MSM. Everyone knows the culprits. Economical and industrial policy of the EU, fatally wounded, permanently even. Finally, the talk about confiscating the Russian reserves that had been frozen. The last nail in the coffin. The financial credibility of the EU fatally wounded. With this, the EU lost its industrial base, economic power, ability to project power abroad in terms of a sovereign and indepent foreign policy, and lost all credibility financially and diplomatically. Check-mate. And you think the Pentagon is somehow going to save the day? You’re out of your mind. Look at history to get some clues.
A fine analysis.
Spot on. The EU is now run by the pentagon, Langley, and washingtub, who didn’t want the EU making their own decisions. Make america great again by turning the EU into rubble, again. US meddling has now meant that the EU is something most europeans no longer want to be part of.
”Washington has pledged over $67 billion in support for Kiev altogether, primarily in weapons – a figure greater than Moscow’s entire 2021 military budget.”
Game over for Russia.
Los democratas estan finiquitados. Me duele decirlo pero Biden a sido un cancer para el mundo
I don’t know. The Russians seem very happy and proficcient destroying the weapons being shipped. Weapons don’t control themselves either, and i don’t see Ukrainian teenagers or retired men suddenly having 2 months of flight training on gliders, Nazi Luftwaffe style, then thrown into modern fighter jets and having any hopes of surviving the first take-off, much less a dogfight.
Weve heard similar from Napoleon and Adolf. And we know the final result.
That is what they said about Vietnam and more recently, Afghanistan. 🤣
i am convinced that the current US establishment is not capable of even the most elementary understanding of what they have done. To them it is not a matter of “did we screw up?” but “we believe the lies we have been telling all these years have become official US policy.”
Well it took some time de be defeated by North Korea, Vietnam and more ignominously by the taliban. Being defeated my Russia is much less dishonourable.
‘For as long as it takes’ to kill or chase out Every White Slav there so our juice masters may install a new kharsarian Jerusalem.
This is a new quagmire the Neocons are coming up with. As always it begins with the camel’s nose entering the tent. Hello Vietman! Remember it all started with advisors.
It won’t be long. If by a miracle Ukraine doesn’t become a landlocked country this Winter, it won’t survive another one. Then what. Whom are you going to support for how long it will take? Elensky government in exhile, in London? With his troupe of Waffen SS Tuba players? Elensky and Los Banderistas Metal Orchestra? Whom exacly is going to support whom when Ukraine ceases to exist? Because it continues to be an existencial threat to Russia, and a cease fire that freezes the conflict would aggravate the situation. I suppose this is mostly to encourage those morons across the pond, in the EU, to keep on buying weapons, pumping the Ukraine Nazi regime full of money and weapons, take on refugees, and buy US LNG at 4, 5x the price they used to get from the Russians. And say thank you.
The American military industrial complex trying to keep itself afloat…while the economy of the people goes to shit.
Pentagon Democrats Vow To Support Ukraine until 01/20/2023
Target the NATO troops in the Ukraine.
They are pissing right into a heavy wind.