So I have a couple things I’ve been wondering about lately.
Since Ukraine is taking in volunteers from foreign nations to fight, can western nations send special forces units to the Ukraine, but if they’re captured/caught disavow any knowledge of them going? Are there any legal ramifications of this? Like could the US, UK, France, etc send members of delta force, SAS, GIGN, etc to Ukraine, then if they are found out just say ‘they went voluntarily, we didn’t send them’?
What exactly would special operations forces be doing in places like Ukraine? Its my understanding that SF units were sent to Syria and Libya to do things like train the locals, lead/organize missions, assassinations, etc. Would they be doing that in Ukraine? Obviously their real mission would be secret, but for the last 20 years or so it seems like SF units were sent overseas to target small non-state terrorist groups, not invading state armies with 190,000 soldiers. So I don’t know what they’d be doing in this situation.
But again I have no idea if they’re even there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of western nations already have a lot of intelligence operatives and special forces units there.
“Legal” has almost no meaning, when dealing with interactions between countries. What’s relevant here is how Russia would react, and their reaction is not likely to be “Oh, well, technically the US didn’t send you, so everything’s OK”. And we care very much about how Russia would react, because some of their potential reactions involve nuclear weapons.
As to what they would be doing in Ukraine if, for some reason, they got involved? My guess is they wouldn’t be doing anything in Ukraine itself. Rather, they’d be hitting key targets within Russian territory, like rail bridges to further hinder Russia’s already overtaxed logistics.
It doesn’t look like the Ukrainians really need much training.
US Army Special Forces (colloquially ‘Green Berets’) have a primary mission of training indigenous forces for insurgency or ‘friendly’ regimes in counterinsurgency. Other SOCOM elements such as 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), Air Force Combat Control (CCT), Pararescue (PJ), and Special Reconnaissance (SR) will do joint training exercises with friendly foreign nations to train them and gain familiarity in the case of future joint operations. It certainly would not be surprising if in the context of joint military training exercises with NATO and the Ukrainian military that these units or others like the 75th Rangers trained Ukrainian units, but this training would be done outside of Ukraine.
Actually having American units on the ground in a non-NATO country would be problematic and would give a tinge of legitimacy to Putin’s rationale for the invasion, hence the specific prohibitions against active duty and reserve troops going to Ukraine on their own. I strongly doubt that the US has any activity military troops there and certainly not engaged in direct action. Whether there are CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary operators or ‘independent’ contractors is another question, but if they are they will be in a ‘deniable’ status, providing intelligence, security, technical support, and guidance on insurgency efforts.
I agree. I doubt there are Western special operations forces in Ukraine right now, volunteer or not. They have little to offer really, and carry a whole lot of risk.
I agree that if the US/NATO were to get involved, a lot would be used for organizing and assisting insurgencies behind enemy lines- one of the US Special Forces’ actual mission, as well as doing typical unconventional warfare stuff like you suggest- blowing up bridges in Russia, Belarus, etc… and generally being pains in the ass to the Russian logistical services. They’d also be gathering intelligence on the Russians as well.
Supposedly the Ukrainian special ops forces are pretty solid though, so they’re almost certainly doing all that stuff themselves these days.
It’s been repeatedly made clear in the UK that serving members of the forces would be breaking the law if they hare off to volunteer abroad (and there are old laws that might forbid civilians from doing so). So there’s no way a UK government could get away with trying to insert “deniable” special forces.
Besides, it undermines the political position if we resort to Russian “little green men” tactics. There’s no halfway house between holding back and openly joining in.
Dying horribly. Special forces don’t last very long against regular troops. Whatever the situation or place. They are lightly equipped. Hence the word “special”. They are used for missions not usually done by the regulars. Everytime anyone has tried to use Special operations types in the regular infantry role, it has without exception ended in disaster.
You need someone to train Ukrainian guerillas in the Polish borderlands? They can do it.
Somebody need to do a smash and grab of some piece of Russian equipment for the intelligence guys? Send them in.
Help partisans create mischief in the Russian rear areas? Thats what the live for.
Face a motor rifle battalion? Fucked…
There is probably a lot of Russian comms gear being smuggled out of Ukraine under various trenchcoats right now too. Seems as though the Russians haven’t fully embraced the idea of wrecking certain gear before abandoning it.
I got the feeling (but obv. no deeper knowledge) that the 3 ship sinking party earlier this had some special forces involved … quite possibly not in the first line - but involvement, nevertheless