The Pentagon is asking the US Congress to renew money for top-secret programs in Ukraine that would allow US special forces to recruit Ukrainian soldiers to monitor Russian military activity, The Washington Post reports.
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“If successful, these programs could resume as early as 2024, although it remains unclear whether the Biden administration will allow US commandos to return to Ukraine or whether the military will do so from neighboring countries,” the newspaper wrote.
According to congressional interlocutors, it is difficult to predict the outcome of the Pentagon’s efforts in light of the cross-party disagreement over how much US money is spent on Ukraine.
Such “surrogate operations” proposed by the Pentagon are called the “1202 program” (based on the number of Section 1202 of the US National Defense Authorization Act of 2018).
The publication explains that US Special Forces have been paying foreign military and paramilitary forces in the Middle East, Asia and Africa for years, thus “replacing” their presence and using such “surrogates” in counter-terrorism operations.
Newer “surrogate programmes”, such as those proposed for use in Ukraine, are considered a form of “irregular warfare”, the author writes.
Such programmes are designed to use mercenary militaries against US adversaries, such as Russia and China, with whom Washington is in competition rather than open conflict.
Critics of the Pentagon’s idea, including those in Congress, fear that such actions could involve the US in direct involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.
On the previous day, a group of US congressmen introduced a resolution demanding that US leader Joe Biden stop providing aid to Ukraine.
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