Ukraine Won't Ask U.S. To Put Troops on Ground

Kyiv has said it would never expect the U.S. to commit its troops to fight in Ukraine, as Washington announced a new package of military support.

Standing next to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press conference in Kyiv, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said that U.S. military aid was not "charity" but "an investment into Europe and the Euro-Atlantic space and the whole world." With its allies, he said Ukraine would hold back the advances of Russia and that "we are not putting any American soldier's life under threat."

While Kyiv drew on the weapons supplied by its allies, Kuleba said that Ukraine has "never asked to send U.S. troops to Ukraine and we are not going to ask this."

"But we truly need support in this fight and this support is recognition of the role Ukraine is carrying out in the context of global history," he added, before describing how talks with his American counterpart involved the provision of further weapons.

The U.S. has announced it would send shells made of depleted uranium to Ukraine as part of more than $1 billion in military and humanitarian aid, whose delivery has been condemned by Russia.

While Moscow has deployed hypersonic missiles and thermobaric weapons on civilian targets during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia's embassy in Washington said sending depleted uranium shells was "a clear sign of inhumanity" and the weapons have "indiscriminate effects."

Russian foreign affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram about "the toxicity of depleted uranium" and how where there have been used previously, "the number of cancer cases spiked."

However, Peter Rough, senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia said that the move was in part a product of the decision to supply U.S-made Abrams tanks.

"These rounds are considered the most effective means of arming those tanks," he told Newsweek in emailed comments as he dismissed criticism about their environmental impacts.

"It sounds more dramatic than it is. Putin blasted the British decision to send depleted uranium rounds as part of their Challenger [tanks] package and tried to spin propaganda from it. I expect the same again here," he added.

Update 09/07/23, 4 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with further information.