‘Ukraine Can Win’ – Trump’s Nominee for Europe Commander Tells Senate

US President Donald Trump’s nominee for the post of Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Lt Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, faced a Senate confirmation hearing on June 24 alongside Vice Admiral Charles Cooper, nominated to be Commander of the US Central Command.

Grynkewich was questioned on a range of security issues that the US currently faces, including the war in Ukraine, during which he said that he believed Ukraine could win a war against Russia. 

Alabama’s Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville asked him why he thought that way, to which Grynkewich replied: “I think any time your own homeland is threatened, you fight with a tenacity that’s difficult for us to conceive of – if we haven’t found ourselves in that same situation.”

Grynkewich, who is currently the head of the Joint Chiefs’ Operations Directorate, was nominated by Trump to fill the post and become the most senior US commander in Europe, which was announced by the US Defense Secretary Pete Hesgeth on June 5. 

According to a Pentagon statement at the time, it had already been agreed with NATO allies. As well as serving as SACEUR, the incumbent also acts as commander of the US European Command (EUCOM).

On the face of it, his view on the potential for a Ukrainian victory contradicts the publicly stated views of Trump and his team that there can be no military solution to the war in Ukraine and that Kyiv and Moscow must negotiate an end to the fighting. However, he went on to say:

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“The president has been very clear on his objectives in Ukraine are to achieve an end to the war and a ceasefire, and if confirmed, my responsibility will be to provide him a wide range of options in order to achieve that objective.”

Grynkewich said that US forces have been actively studying the course of the war in Ukraine and have identified lessons to be drawn from key areas, including the upsurge in the role of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

“The pace of innovation that we’ve seen really on both sides of the equation has shown that smaller drones, precisely maneuvered with lethal payloads, can have a devastating effect on enemy forces on the front line,” Grynkowych said.

Grynkewych, now 53 years old, is a former F-16 and F-22 fighter pilot who has filled a number of command and staff posts since graduating from the US Air Force Academy in 1993 and was promoted to Lt. Gen. in July 2022. 

If confirmed as SACEUR, he will be promoted upon taking up the post, becoming the first nominee to be made a four-star general at the time of appointment rather than beforehand.

As the general’s name indicates, he has Eastern European ancestry. According to The Moscow Times, his great-grandfather, Ilya, emigrated to the US from what is now Belarus in 1899 and married Anastasia, a Lithuanian in New York, two years later. They had four children, one of whom was his grandfather Nicholas. His father Gregory was an expert in the field of semiconductors.