The United States will send a small number
of employees of private military companies in Ukraine to take care of the maintenance of American weapons. Such a decision was officially pending, but American security and defense services companies (SDCs) did not hide their presence in Ukraine.
Some of these ESSDs (in the United States, we rather speak of SMP, for private military companies) are already at work in Poland (the US company Amentum repairs armored vehicles there Bradley Ukrainians. See below) and Romania (for fighter jets F-16) ; they will therefore have no difficulty projecting personnel into Ukrainian territory.
Why such a decision? The election of Donald Trump turns everything upside down, especially if the “president-elect” carries out his threats to stop sending material and financial aid to kyiv. kyiv, whose armies are in poor shape in the Donbass and which is short of personnel to carry out all the missions necessary for the continuation of its war effort (maintenance in operational condition or MCO, maintenance, logistics, training etc.)
Far from the front
Washington's sending of service providers to Ukraine was announced on Friday by a US Defense official. American ESSDs who will work in Ukraine will be far from the front lines and will not participate in combat against the Russian army. They will help the Ukrainian military quickly repair and maintain U.S.-supplied equipment, as needed, so they can quickly return to the front lines
it was clarified.
We are taking this action because some of the American equipment supplied to Ukraine — or which will be supplied to Ukraine in the coming months — such as F-16 or air defense systems Patriot require specific technical expertise to be maintained
said the official, adding that this decision was taken after careful risk assessment
. And perhaps against a backdrop of North Korean interference in the conflict.
The presence of “ contractors », like those of the large American company Amentum which maintains helicopters Black Hawk of the kyiv special services, is already effective but remains unofficial.
Currently, it is in the field of MCO and maintenance that these contractors ; others are (or will quickly be) deployed to intervene in logistical support, training, even intelligence…
Slam the envelope
To this decision by the Biden administration (a decision which is not yet official on November 9) could be added new transfers of arms and ammunition, as a Pentagon spokesperson suggested.
Before the Republican inauguration on January 20, the government of the outgoing president will certainly seek to spend until the last cent the budgetary envelope voted in favor of Ukraine. An envelope which would total at least 7 billion dollars and 4 of which would be used for the next arms transfers to kyiv.
