American servicemen will not fight in Ukraine if Russia decides to invade, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said on Sunday, amid rising fears in Washington that war is around the corner.
Speaking to MSNBC, Kirby was responding to last week’s statement by President Joe Biden that American soldiers would not be flown into Kiev to evacuate US citizens located in Ukraine.
“The president has made it very clear that US troops will not be fighting in Ukraine,” Kirby reiterated. “[If] we put American forces in there, under the mission of helping evacuate Americans, you are absolutely raising the stakes of miscalculation and certainly increasing the possibilities that American troops and Russian troops would come into combat with each other.”
According to Kirby, this would make the situation kick off “to a whole new level.”
The Pentagon spokesman also stressed that US citizens in Ukraine still have the ability to leave the country and urged them all to do so. This advice echoes a similar statement made by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan last week, who encouraged all Americans “to depart immediately.”
“We want to be crystal clear on this point: Any American in Ukraine should leave as soon as possible, and in any event, in the next 24 to 48 hours,” he said. “We obviously cannot predict the future. We don’t know exactly what is going to happen. But the risk is now high enough and the threat is now immediate enough that this is what prudence demands.”
Last Friday, a poll published by The Economist/YouGov revealed that just 13% of US adults believe it would be a “good idea” to deploy troops to fight Russians in Ukraine, with a majority (55%) being opposed to any intervention. Those surveyed were, however, much more in favor of other measures, such as sanctions (50%), financial aid (42%), and sending weapons (38%).