The United States maintains troops all throughout the world, especially in locations where embassies are located. However, there is a distinction between U.S. military soldiers who are present to protect diplomats and those who have “boots on the ground,” suggesting that they are combat-ready.

This is the situation in Ukraine, and as the confrontation between Ukraine and Russia grows, the United States has not formally joined the fight, but force deployment has changed substantially.

This week, the AP and the Washington Post both reported that “inspectors” have been appointed to the Ukrainian military.  “A small number of U.S. military forces inside Ukraine have recently begun doing onsite inspections to ensure that Ukrainian troops are properly accounting for the Western-provided weapons they receive, a senior U.S. defense official told Pentagon reporters Monday,” the AP/WaPo reporting revealed.

U.S. troops are reportedly conducting “inspections” of US weapon caches after the State Department and Pentagon unveiled a new plan last week to track US-supplied weapons in an effort to ensure accountability for the billions of dollars’ worth of arms and ammunition transferred to Ukrainian forces since the conflict’s beginning eight months ago.

As their responsibilities are distinct from embassy security, they come under a different deployment, although the term “boots on the ground” has not been used to describe them.

Oh wow… US boots on the ground in Ukraine? Delivering solutions to problems you created in the first place… so you can create more problems and bring more "solutions…" Rinse, repeat. https://t.co/zbQpsid5LK

— Alex (Sasha) Krainer (@NakedHedgie) November 1, 2022

In a Tuesday follow-up piece, The Washington Post provided the following information:

U.S. monitors have conducted in-person inspections for only about 10 percent of the 22,000 U.S.-provided weapons sent to Ukraine that require special oversight.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reveal information not previously made public, stated that they are rushing to deploy new means for tracking weapons with a high risk of diversion, such as Stinger surface-to-air missiles and Javelin antitank missiles, amid what they call Ukraine’s “super hot conflict.”

The campaign is widely viewed as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to alleviate Republican wrath in Congress, where protests have grown louder about the unaccountable “Wild West” manner in which Pentagon weaponry have expanded in Ukraine — a point that CNN highlighted months ago.

Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, stated that the Ukrainians have been participating as willing partners in weapons responsibility and adopting procedures to ensure a proper chain of possession, indicating that the extra forces are not military activities. “While we recognize the unpredictability of combat, the United States and Ukraine have cooperated to prevent illicit weapons diversion since Russia’s further invasion began earlier this year,” she said.

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

As Zero Hedge notes, “Like with Syria before, it’s likely the White House and Pentagon will carefully avoid acknowledging wording like “boots on the ground” in their press statements…” CONTINUE READING…