Friday Briefing: NATO Considers Sending Trainers to Ukraine

Military vehicles traveling from Germany to Poland as part of a NATO exercise.Credit…Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

NATO is considering sending military trainers to Ukraine

NATO allies are inching closer to sending military trainers into Ukraine. The move could draw the U.S. and Europe more directly into the war with Russia.

Ukrainian officials have asked their U.S. and NATO counterparts to help train 150,000 new recruits closer to the front line for faster deployment. So far the U.S. has been adamant that it will not put U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine, and has urged NATO allies not to do so either.

But yesterday, Gen. Charles Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that a NATO deployment of trainers seemed inevitable. “We’ll get there eventually, over time,” he told reporters.

For now, the general said, such a move would put NATO trainers at risk and would most likely mean deciding whether to use precious air defenses to protect the trainers — instead of critical Ukrainian infrastructure near the battlefield. Any attack on the trainers would force the U.S. to honor its NATO obligations, dragging it into the war.

At the front: Ukraine’s position has worsened as Russia has stepped up attacks, in particular in the northeast. Yesterday, President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to the Kharkiv region and acknowledged that the situation there “remains extremely difficult.” “We are strengthening our units,” he added.

Russia: As he intensifies his war effort, President Vladimir Putin called for stronger economic ties between Russia and China at a summit in Beijing with Xi Jinping, China’s leader.