The market will resolve as YES if by the end of 2024 any country officially admits to sending any number of troops to Ukraine to act in any capacity on the Ukrainian side. This can include personnel directly participating in combat, as well as special forces, intelligence, instructors etc. The troops do not have to be in the Ukrainian chain of command, but they need to be deployed with Ukraine's consent.
The troops have to be on active military duty, volunteers don't count. They can be deployed either by some country's military directly, or as part of some international organization like NATO.
For the market to resolve to YES, both the deployment and the official statement about it have to happen by the end of 2024. The statement has to be explicit. A vague statement of intent followed by third-party reports about the troops is not enough.
I tried to verify that so far the conditions for this questions haven't been fulfilled. If I am wrong, please point me to the relevant news in the comment, and I will resolve the question.
I do not bet on my own questions.
1,000
3.00@OlegEterevsky Is there any reason why this article wouldn't be sufficient to resolve the market?
Specifically this statement:
"Beyond the small number of personnel we do have in country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine, we haven't got any plans for large-scale deployment," the spokesman told reporters
@Arky
1. This statement seems more like a clarification of existing policy rather than an official admission of sending new troops. The context is actually a denial of plans to send troops (specifically responding to Macron's comments about potential troop deployments).
2. NATO soldiers have been present in Ukraine for over a decade, not in combat units but as instructors for the Ukrainian army
@IB The question wasn't specifically about sending new troops. I believe it's enough that they have been operating at the time of the statement in early 2024.
@OlegEterevsky I think I'm hindsight this was a tricky one, because it could probably have been resolved as yes on the day this question was asked, according to the description
@MalachiteEagle Yes, apparently it could. But when I created the question, I made a quick search for the statements and didn't find anything definite. I wrote in the description:
"I tried to verify that so far the conditions for this questions haven't been fulfilled. If I am wrong, please point me to the relevant news in the comment, and I will resolve the question."
@OlegEterevsky like maybe asking if a country would make a statement admitting to the presence of troops between "question_start_date" and "question_end_date" would have been a better market
@OlegEterevsky that way the market can react only to new information as opposed to requiring the legwork of going back through old reports
@OlegEterevsky There is nothing about sending troops. It's very vague what type of 'personnel' is there.
@MalachiteEagle I agree that it would've been better if I specified an exact period.
But based on my experience with this market I don't really want to create another one since it's quite difficult to judge. There are news that borderline resolve the market, but it's hard to judge whether they are enough. Also the statements are usually somewhat vague and rarely give the specifics. Not to mention, it's hard to resolve the market as a NO, since it's difficult to make sure that you haven't missed a relevant statement.
@OlegEterevsky One way to do it is add in the description "this market will resolve as YES if and only if a link which provides strong evidence of/supporting X is shared in the comments before this question's end date"
@OlegEterevsky that way it's not added effort to the judge to go out find information about the question's resolution; plus it encourages engagement
@MalachiteEagle Yes, it definitely makes things simpler. I've done it in other questions: I post a comment with a request for links, and if nothing is posted in the next few days, resolve as NO.
However it doesn't solve the problem of statements being vague and having to make a judgement call on whether they count.
Another possible criterion is to ask whether any other countries are listed among the belligerents on the main Wikipedia article about the war, but this is a much higher bar, compared to the current question.
There are news that France is considering sending its instructors to Ukraine: https://t.me/osirskiy/702. If this decision is made, it will resolve this question.
@traders It seems like US sending additional support troops to Ukraine fulfills all the requirements from this market: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/20/us-troops-ukraine-00153499
The fact that the troops are mentioned as “additional” means that US implicitly admits that it had already deployed some troops there.
Does anyone have any reasoning why I shouldn’t resolve this question now?
Those implicitly admitted to already be there are for security at the embassy it says a bit down in the article so I don't think they should count (I guess it's not uncommon for countries to use military for embassy security at certain places, but Idk). The "additional troops" should obviously count when sent and acknowledged.