The White House has reportedly approved a plan that would stage U.S. troops on the Poland side of the Ukrainian-Polish border to help Americans leaving Ukraine should Russia invade.
The troops would set up the logistical support for Americans evacuating Ukraine, such as tent camps and other temporary facilities, though they would not be authorized to enter Ukraine, and the military would not transport evacuees from Ukraine to other countries, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The report comes roughly a week after President Joe Biden deployed approximately 3,000 troops to Eastern European countries to provide support for allies. The moves come amid the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been a possibility for weeks since Russian President Vladimir Putin deployed more than 100,000 troops to the Ukrainian border.
BIDEN DEPLOYING 3,000 TROOPS TO FORTIFY EUROPE AMID RUSSIA-UKRAINE STANDOFF
“These are multimission forces, trained and equipped for a variety of missions to deter aggression and to provide reassurance to NATO Allies,” a White House official told the Washington Examiner in response to questions about the report.
“We are constantly evaluating the evolving security situation and planning for a range of contingencies as we always do, but to be clear, we are not planning for a mass evacuation of American citizens from Ukraine,” the official added. “President Biden has been clear that we believe Americans in Ukraine would be wise to leave Ukraine.”
Roughly 2,000 troops from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will deploy to Poland and Germany, while another 1,000 or so will reposition from Germany to Romania, NATO’s westernmost country. Among the first group, roughly 1,700 of those service members are from the 82nd Airborne Division, while the rest are from the 18th Airborne Corps. An additional 8,500 U.S. troops are on “heightened alert” for a possible deployment for a NATO response.
“I can’t rule out the fact that these soldiers could be used to some degree with evacuation assistance on the other side of that border, and certainly they’re going to be prepared to do that,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday.
Administration officials have repeatedly urged Americans in Ukraine, roughly 30,000, to leave the country.
“I think it would be wise to leave the country,” Biden said earlier this week, adding, “I would hate to see them get caught in a crossfire if in fact [Russia] did invade. And there’s no need for that, and if I had anyone there, I’d say, ‘leave.'”
U.S. lawmakers were briefed about the latest military and intelligence assessments last week. Should Russia launch a full-scale invasion, it could result in as many as 50,000 civilians injured or killed, launch a humanitarian crisis creating up to 5 million refugees, and overthrow Ukraine in a matter of two days, according to the Washington Post.
For weeks, the administration has warned that Russia could launch a “false flag operation” to justify an invasion. Most recently, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby warned last week that “we believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations.”
U.S. officials have repeatedly said they’re unsure if Putin will ultimately decide to invade Ukraine, and some have said they believe he hasn’t decided yet. Putin has demanded that NATO stop expanding eastward into Ukraine. The U.S. has threatened significant economic sanctions should Russia invade.
The possibility of needing to evacuate Americans in Ukraine is reminiscent of the evacuation efforts that took place last August in Afghanistan ahead of the U.S.’s scheduled departure date at the end of the month. The State Department launched a noncombatant evacuation operation in mid-August after the Taliban overthrew the U.S.-backed Ghani government and they were able to evacuate more than 100,000 people.
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The Army launched an investigation in the wake of an Aug. 26 suicide bombing outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, which killed an estimated 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members. In interviews, U.S. military commanders claimed Biden’s top national security and State Department advisers resisted pressure to move quickly, endangering lives, according to the Washington Post, which obtained the report through a Freedom of Information Act request.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the administration on Tuesday, saying, “Earlier in the summer, we pre-positioned U.S. forces to be ready to facilitate … an evacuation, if needed, of our embassy there. That is fact in terms of what was planning, what was done at the time, and that in advance of that, that required months of planning with contingencies planned for.”
