US launches new combat training for Ukrainian troops

The US military has launched a new expanded combat training program in Germany to bolster the skills of Ukrainian forces fighting the invasion of Russia.

The program, which began Sunday, aims to get a battalion of about 500 soldiers back to the battlefield to fight the Russians in the next five to eight weeks, said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The training program comes as both Ukraine and Russia prepare to enter an intense new phase of the war this spring, with Ukraine deploying new tanks supplied by NATO countries and Russia completing its massive mobilization of hundreds of thousands of troops. recruited.

Milley, who plans to visit the Grafenwoehr training area on Monday to see the program firsthand, said the troops undergoing training left Ukraine a few days ago. In Germany there is a complete set of weapons and equipment for you to use.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the program, which began Sunday, aims to return a battalion of about 500 soldiers to the battlefield to fight the Russians in the next five to eight weeks.

The so-called combined arms training is aimed at honing the skills of Ukrainian forces so they are better prepared to launch an offensive or counter any wave of Russian attacks.

They will learn how to better move and coordinate their company- and battalion-sized units in battle, using combined artillery, armor, and ground forces.

Until now, the Pentagon has refused to say exactly when the training would begin.

Speaking to two reporters who traveled with him to Europe on Sunday, Milley said the complex training, combined with a raft of new weapons, artillery, tanks and other vehicles headed for Ukraine, will be key to helping the country’s forces take back territory that has been captured by Russia in the nearly 11-month war.

“This support is really important for Ukraine to be able to defend itself,” Milley said. “And hopefully we can resolve this here before long.”

The goal, he said, is for all incoming weapons and equipment to be delivered to Ukraine so that newly trained forces can use them “sometime before the spring rains come.” That would be ideal.

Ukrainian servicemen fire an anti-aircraft gun at Russian positions on a front line near the town of Bakhmut, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the Donetsk region on Sunday.

A Ukrainian tank with soldiers is seen through a car window near the front line near Kremenna in Lugansk region, Ukraine on Sunday.

On Monday, the Kremlin mocked the recent transfer of NATO-supplied armored fighting vehicles to Ukrainian forces, saying they would have no impact on the Russian invasion, which Moscow calls a “special military operation.”

‘The special military operation will continue. These tanks burn well and will burn like all the others. The goals of the special military operation will be achieved,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by state media Tass.

Peskov said he doubted that Western countries “care about the fate of people living in Ukraine or their future.”

“They just use that country as a tool to achieve their anti-Russian goals,” Peskov said.

The new training program in Germany comes as Ukrainian forces face fierce fighting in the eastern province of Donetsk, where the Russian military has claimed control of the small salt mining town of Soledar.

Ukraine claims its troops are still fighting, but if Moscow troops take control of Soledar, it would allow them to inch closer to the larger city of Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for months.

Russia also launched a widespread barrage of missile strikes, including in Kyiv, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the southeastern city of Dnipro, where the death toll at an apartment building rose to 35.

Rescue teams carry the body of a man who was killed in a Russian missile attack on an apartment building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Monday.

Personnel carry out a search and rescue operation at the site where civilians lost their lives in the missile attack, carried out by Russian forces in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Monday.

Milley said he wants to make sure training is on track and if anything else is needed, and also make sure it aligns well with equipment deliveries.

The program will include classroom instruction and field work beginning with small squads and gradually growing to involve larger units.

It would culminate in a more complex combat exercise involving an entire battalion and a headquarters unit.

Until now, the US focus has been on providing Ukrainian forces with the most immediate needs on the battlefield, particularly how to use the wide range of Western weapons systems entering the country.

The United States has already trained more than 3,100 Ukrainian soldiers on how to use and maintain certain weapons and other equipment, including howitzers, armored vehicles, and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS.

Other nations are also conducting training on the weapons they provide.

Emergency personnel work at the site where an apartment block was badly damaged by a Russian missile strike in Dnipro on Monday.

Announcing the new program last month, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said the idea “is to be able to give them this advanced level of collective training that allows them to conduct effective combined arms operations and maneuver on the battlefield.”

Milley said the United States was doing this type of training before the Russian invasion last February.

But once the war started, the US National Guard and special operations forces that were training inside Ukraine left the country.

This new effort, which is being conducted by the US Army’s 7th Army Europe and Africa Training Command, will be a continuation of what they had been doing before the invasion. Other European allies are also providing training.