US to expand combat training of Ukrainian service members
Mike Brest
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The Department of Defense announced an expansion of its training of Ukrainian forces, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder announced from the podium on Thursday.
This expansion, which will occur in the next couple weeks, will ultimately allow for a maximum of 500 Ukrainian troops to be trained per month.
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The United States will “bring in battalion-sized units, and it will begin with things like live-fire exercises followed by squad platoon and company-level training that will then culminate in battalion-level maneuver training,” Ryder said, explaining that this training really amounts to a restart of the training the U.S. National Guard had provided to Ukraine from 2014 until shortly before Russia invaded last February.
This increase does not require a significant bump in the number of U.S. troops in Europe. The U.S. and other NATO allies have held training in Europe since earlier this year. Specifically, the U.S. has already trained roughly 3,100 Ukrainian troops on how to operate and maintain certain weapons, including howitzers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS.
“Combined arms-maneuver training is a logical next step in our ongoing training efforts, which began in 2014, to build the Ukrainian armed forces’ capacity,” Ryder said. “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.”
Russian officials warned the Biden administration of “unpredictable consequences” on Thursday if President Joe Biden goes through with a plan to provide Ukraine with a sophisticated air defense system that they had previously declined to give them.
The Patriot missile defense system, a Raytheon product, is designed to track and intercept incoming ballistic and cruise missiles, and it would help the Ukrainians defend against aerial strikes Russian forces are launching using Iranian-made Shahed drones that are targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
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In responding to the threat from the Russians, Ryder said the U.S. will not “allow comments from Russia to dictate the security assistance” the Biden administration provides.
“I find it ironic and very telling that officials from a country that brutally attacked its neighbor in an illegal and unprovoked invasion through a campaign that is deliberately targeting and killing innocent civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, that they would choose to use words like ‘provocative’ to describe defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians,” Ryder noted.