As Russia advances, NATO considers sending trainers into Ukraine

BRUSSELS — NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a move that would be another blurring of a previous red line and could draw the United States and Europe more directly into the war.

Ukraine’s manpower shortage has reached a critical point, and its position on the battlefield in recent weeks has seriously worsened as Russia has accelerated its advances to take advantage of delays in shipments of U.S. weapons. As a result, 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 United States has said no, but Gen. Charles Brown Jr., chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that a NATO deployment of trainers appeared inevitable. “We’ll get there eventually, over time,” he said.

For now, he said, an effort inside Ukraine would put “a bunch of 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. Brown briefed reporters on his plane en route to a NATO meeting in Brussels.

As a part of NATO, the United States would be obligated under the alliance’s treaty to aid in the defense of any attack on the trainers, potentially dragging America into the war.

The White House has been adamant that it will not put U.S. troops, including trainers, on the ground in Ukraine, a position that an administration official reiterated Thursday. The administration has also urged NATO allies not to send its troops.

But in February, President Emmanuel Macron of France said that “nothing should be ruled out” when it comes to sending Western troops to Ukraine. Macron has doubled down on his comment since, including after senior American diplomats asked him to stop.

The government of Estonia has not ruled out the possibility of sending troops to western Ukraine to take over rear roles that could free Ukrainian troops to go to the front, Estonia’s national security adviser said this week.

Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, backed Macron’s stance in an interview with the The Guardian last week. “Our troops have been training Ukrainians in Ukraine before the war,” he said, adding, “So returning to this tradition might be quite doable.”

Moving the training into Ukraine, military officials acknowledge, would allow American trainers to more quickly gather information about the innovations occurring on the Ukrainian front lines, potentially allowing them to adapt their training.

NATO last month asked Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the supreme allied commander for Europe, to come up with a way for the alliance to do more to help Ukraine that would mitigate risks. A U.S. official said Wednesday that one possibility could be training Ukrainian troops in Lviv, near the country’s western border with Poland.

Other NATO allies, including Britain, Germany and France, are working to base defense contractors in Ukraine to help build and repair weapons systems closer to the combat zone — what military officials have described as a “fix it forward” approach. Current and former U.S. defense officials said the White House is now reviewing its ban on allowing U.S. defense contractors in Ukraine.

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