The military personnel are reportedly inspecting Western weapons deliveries
American troops are on the ground in Ukraine, where they are monitoring NATO arms deliveries to the country, an anonymous Pentagon official told several US media outlets on Monday. It is unclear how many personnel are involved, or where they are located.
Speaking to the Associated Press, NBC News, and other members of the Pentagon press pool, the official said that the contingent of troops is led by Brigadier General Garrick Harmon, the US defense attache to Kiev.
“There have been several of these inspections,” the official told reporters, without revealing where the examinations have taken place. He added that the checks are not happening “close to the front lines,” but where security conditions allow.
The US inspected its arms shipments to Ukraine before Russia launched its military operation in February, but pulled its personnel out of the country days before it began. It is unclear how many troops have returned or when the checks restarted.
The Pentagon official would only say that a “small” number of troops are involved.
The US State Department announced last week that it would allocate “personnel to assist the government of Ukraine with handling…of US security assistance,” although it did not mention that these personnel would be drawn from the ranks of the military. The plan was announced after media reports, citing US intelligence agencies, claimed that Washington could not trace the weapons it sends to Ukraine.
One intelligence source told CNN in April that these weapons disappear “into a big black hole” once they enter the country. The anonymous Pentagon official told journalists that Kiev has been “transparent,” and has cooperated with inspectors thus far.
While Americans have fought and died in Ukraine of their own accord, Monday’s announcement marks the first time since February that Washington has acknowledged the presence of uniformed troops in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has cautioned the US and its NATO allies against getting involved in the conflict, and even before the announcement, he stated that the Kremlin views itself as fighting the “entire Western military machine” in Ukraine.
China has suspended several 2025 export controls on strategic materials — including rare earths, superhard materials, and lithium batteries – for a year. Is this a concession to the US, or a move in a far more complex game?
"The first aim of China’s export controls was to consolidate its leverage in negotiations. The second was to establish a long-term framework for managing such controls," says Yana Leksyutina, deputy director at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
Сhina could activate this mechanism at any moment, and now everyone knows it’s a lever it holds, she explains to Sputnik.
Balancing the Mineral Market
"The moratorium on export bans to the US essentially resets the rare earth market to where it was previously," Jeff J. Brown, author of 'The China Trilogy' and founder of Seek Truth From Facts Foundation, tells Sputnik.
In the meantime, there will be a global rush by the US and its NATO allies to acquire as many rare earth ...
The Israeli regime has reportedly signed contracts worth millions of dollars in recent months to sway American public opinion as part of attempts to launder the occupying entity’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that the multimillion-dollar campaign aimed to reshape US public opinion, both online and offline, through coordinated influence operations combining digital marketing, AI, geotagging, and religious messaging.
The contracts, signed between the Israeli regime and firms linked to US President Donald Trump, reveal a “hasbara [propaganda] campaign” and schemes to target millions of US churchgoers, deploy bots, hire influencers, and try to make ChatGPT more pro-Israel.
The largest contract, worth $6 million, was signed with Clock Tower X, owned by Trump’s former digital campaign chief Brad Parscale, to produce and distribute roughly 100 core pieces of pro-Israel content per month and thousands......
