The White House has chosen Terry Wolff, a 34-year U.S. Army veteran, to coordinate the U.S. government’s security assistance to Ukraine.
His appointment comes one week after a bipartisan group of senators urged President Biden in a letter to establish the coordinator position to manage response time for the transfer of defense articles to the Ukrainian armed forces defending their country amid Russia’s invasion.
Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., were among the signatories of the April 14 letter and they both lauded the designation in a joint statement Thursday.
Wolff retired from the Army in February 2014 with the rank of lieutenant general. He served as director of strategic plans and policy at the Joint Chiefs of Staff for more than two years prior to his retirement.
His military service also included time as commander of the U.S. Army Europe’s 1st Armored Division, Coalition Military Assistance Training Team and 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
He also held a nearly two-year stint as senior director at the National Security Council for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wolff has served as director of the Department of Defense’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies since June 2014 and held a 39-month stint at the State Department as deputy special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS from November 2015 to February 2019.