The Pentagon has appointed a Lt. General (3 stars) Terry Wolff to head a new Army headquarters in Germany with a staff of 300 US military members to coordinate security assistance for Ukraine.
Gen. Wolff is a graduate of the US Army Ranger School, a former officer of an armored division, and former director of Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is not the kind of officer that is given inventory assignments.
As previously reported, Washington already has a division of troops deployed, not training, on Ukraine’s border and uniformed personnel in Ukraine ostensibly to prevent Ukraine from selling the weapons supplied by the West in black markets. Is “security assistance” a cover story for setting up a War Command Staff for the purpose of waging war in Ukraine against Russia?
If it is a subterfuge, it is one similar to those used to get the US involved in the Vietnam War.
Putin might be on the point of learning that his “limited operation” has left him with two choices: conclude a face-saving truce with Ukraine, if permitted, or find himself at war with the United States.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin is trying to revive Russian financial integration with the West, having learned nothing from the sanctions. Russia wants financial reconnection to the SWIFT payments system in order to be paid for food and fertilizer shipments. In other words, the Kremlin wants to bail out Washington from the responsibility for the hardships Washington’s sanctions policy is imposing, not on Russia, but on countries where hunger is a threat. Again, we have the Kremlin protecting her enemies as in Ukraine. The Kremlin certainly behaves strangely for a country at war.
I hope Putin doesn’t think he is going to earn brownie points in Washington.