Expanded US training for Ukrainian forces in Germany underway
Mike Brest
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The U.S. military’s new and expanded training of Ukrainian forces began on Sunday.
Roughly 500 Ukrainian troops are participating in the training, which is taking place in Germany, and the goal is to get these service members back on the battlefield between one and two months from now. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Associated Press that the U.S. troops conducting the training left a few days ago while the weapons and equipment needed for it are already there and ready to use.
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Soldiers from U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command’s 7th Army Training Command will provide the combined arms and joint maneuver training, Department of Defense spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said last month, when the expanded training was announced. It will help the Ukrainians hone the skills necessary to be better prepared to conduct an offensive or repel a new Russian attack.
“This support is really important for Ukraine to be able to defend itself,” Milley said. “And we’re hoping to be able to pull this together here in short order.”
He also explained that the goal is for all the incoming weapons and equipment to reach Ukraine “sometime before the spring rain shows up,” so that the newly trained service members could use them. “That would be ideal.”
This training comes on the heels of a similar program where U.S. forces trained Ukrainian service members in Ukraine dating back to 2014, though it was paused shortly before the war. It will include live-fire exercises and squad, platoon, and company-level training that will lead to “battalion-level maneuver training,” Ryder explained.
“[This] is a logical next step in our ongoing training efforts, which began in 2014, to build the Ukrainian armed forces capacity,” Ryder said at the time. “While there’s an understandable focus on the equipment being provided to Ukraine, training is and has been essential to ensuring Ukraine has the skilled forces necessary to better defend themselves.”
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U.S. forces have already trained more than 3,100 Ukrainian troops on how to use and maintain the weapons and other equipment they’ve already provided, including howitzers, armored vehicles, and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, while other countries have also conducted similar training on the weapons they’ve given.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed to have captured the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar late last week, which marks its first battlefield victory in recent months. Though the city itself does not pose significant value, its proximity to the bigger and nearby city of Bakhmut, where fighting has been ongoing for months, could be significant.