GRAFENWOEHR TRAINING AREA, Germany (AP) — Monday was just Day Two for Ukrainian soldiers in the U.S. Army’s new training program, but the message came through loud and clear.
These are urgent moments. And the lessons they will learn over the next five weeks about weapons, armored vehicles and more sophisticated combat techniques are crucial as they prepare to defend their country against a Russian invasion.
“This is not run of the mill,” U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday afternoon when he met with commanders. “It’s one of those moments in time where if you want to make a difference, that’s it.”
Milli, who visited the sprawling Grafenwoehr training area to see the new so-called combined arms instruction for the first time, said it would better prepare Ukrainian troops to launch an offensive or counter any surge in Russian attacks.
He spent just under two hours at Camp Kherson, part of the base named after a city in Ukraine where Ukrainian troops scored a key victory against Russia last year. More than 600 Ukrainian soldiers began the expanded training program at the camp just a day before Mili’s arrival.
For the first time since the war began almost a year ago, reporters were given wide access to watch various parts of the training. Reporters were allowed to follow Milly and observe his interactions with Ukrainian and American troops and commanders, but were not allowed to report on specific conversations with Ukrainian forces or take photos or video. The restrictions reflect ongoing US concerns about escalating Russian anger over Western intervention in the war or sparking a wider conflict.
The US has conducted training at Grafenwoehr for years, including for allied forces in Europe. But limited training for Ukrainian forces began last year, shortly after the Russian invasion. At the time, he was focused specifically on various weapon systems that were being supplied by the US, such as the howitzer.
Last month, the Pentagon announced it would expand training in an effort to improve the skills of Ukrainian forces. The five-week course will teach them to move and coordinate their company- and battalion-sized units effectively in battle using combined artillery, armor and ground forces.
It will involve classroom training and field work that will begin with small units and gradually grow to include larger units. It will culminate in a more complex combat exercise that brings together an entire battalion and a staff unit.
Training at Grafenwoehr is conducted by the 7th Army Training Command.
Speaking to two reporters traveling with him to Europe on Sunday, Milli said the sophisticated training – coupled with an array of new weapons, artillery, tanks and other vehicles aimed at Ukraine – would be key to helping the country’s forces to regain territory that was captured by Russia in the nearly 11-month-long war.
On Monday, as she walked through the training area, Millie teased the troops, asking them about their combat experience and talking to them about their mission.
“The urgency was clear,” said Army Col. Dave Butler, Milley’s spokesman. “These soldiers go to defend their country in battle.”
Milli said on Sunday that the goal was to get the incoming weapons and equipment to Ukraine so that the newly trained forces could use them “sometime before the spring rains come. That would be perfect.”
The new directive comes as Western analysts point to signs the Kremlin is bracing for a protracted war and say Russia’s military high command is preparing for an expanded mobilization effort.
On the other side of the battlefield, Ukrainian forces face fierce fighting in eastern Donetsk province, where the Russian military claims control of the small salt mining town of Soledar. Ukraine says its troops are still fighting, but if Moscow’s troops take control of Soledar, it will allow them to get closer to the larger city of Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for months.
Russia also launched a widespread barrage of missile strikes over the weekend, including in Kyiv, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the southeastern city of Dnipro, where the death toll in one residential building rose to 40.
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