WASHINGTON, May 15. /TASS/. The US army is not ready and the country's population does not want a military conflict with Russia, Republican Richard Black, a former member of the Virginia General Assembly, told TASS.
According to him, the opinion of Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic caucus in the US House of Representatives, who actually did not rule out sending US troops to Ukraine, "cannot be ignored." "He speaks for the foreign policy establishment," Black pointed out.
He stressed that in the event of a shift to the Democrats following the results of the November elections in the lower house of Congress, Jeffries could take the post of Speaker, the third most important position in the US government hierarchy. Black called his remarks "reckless and irresponsible," comparing them to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan in 2022 "in a bid to sell weapons by provoking tensions with China."
"I worry about suggestions that Americans might be sent to fight Russians. Americans don’t want war with Russia, and the US is unprepared for such a war," Black emphasized. According to him, the US armed forces' ammunition stocks are "depleted, the Pentagon is bloated and politicized," and there is a "shortage of high-quality recruits" for training. "I doubt that Washington could generate the support necessary to fight a war," he opined, saying that there is "no support for the draft" into the armed forces, "which would be vital in wartime."
"I do not expect the US to send troops to fight in Ukraine, but Western leaders are so vested in this foolish enterprise that anything is possible. They know that Ukraine is near collapse, and they will do everything possible to keep it afloat until the November presidential elections," Black concluded.
Jeffries said in a May 5 interview with CBS television that the US "can't let Ukraine fall because if it does, then there's a significant likelihood that America will have to get into the conflict," not only financially but also "with our servicewomen and our servicemen." US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, commenting on Jeffries' remarks, that the United States does not intend to send its troops to Ukraine.