Pentagon Weighs Deploying Special Forces to Guard U.S. Embassy in Kyiv

The Pentagon is reportedly considering deploying special forces to guard the newly reopened U.S. embassy in Kyiv as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues. 

The embassy in Kyiv reopened last week, more than three months after moving over safety concerns. 

Joe Biden, as well as senior defense officials including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, have yet to be presented with a set plan, Just the News reports. 

However, the administration is weighing the risk of escalating tensions in the area by sending American troops into the warzone. 

The troops would only defend and protect the U.S. embassy, which is in a direct path of Russian missiles, U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal. 

The State Department is currently using its own guards in Kyiv from the Diplomatic Security Service. 

Indeed, the Pentagon and State Department are in preliminary planning stages of sending dozens of troops to assist. One option is to restore a Marine security guard detachment to the diplomatic mission. 

While Biden promised that no U.S. troops would be sent into Ukraine, the White House is debating whether the presence of U.S. forces would deter an attack on embassy staff or provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin. Officials are also considering whether there are enough forces to extract personnel if fighting breaks out in Kyiv, which still receives occasional Russian airstrikes.

"We are in close touch with our colleagues at the State Department about potential security requirements now that they have resumed operations at the embassy in Kyiv," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told the Journal. "But no decisions have been made, and no specific proposals have been debated at senior levels of the department about the return of U.S. military members to Ukraine for that or any other purpose."