January 22, 2015 (http://www.defensenews.com)
American
soldiers will deploy to Ukraine this spring to begin training four companies of
the Ukrainian National Guard, the head of US Army Europe Lt. Gen Ben Hodges
said during his first visit to Kiev on Wednesday. The number of troops heading
to the Yavoriv Training Area near the city of L'viv — which is about 40 miles
from the Polish border — is still being determined, however. The American
training effort comes as part of a US State Department initiative "to
assist Ukraine in strengthening its law enforcement capabilities, conduct
internal defense, and maintain rule of law" Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col.
Vanessa Hillman told Defense News.
After meeting with commander of the Ukrainian
Armed Forces Lt. Gen. Anatoliy Pushnyakov and acting commander of the National
Guard Lt. Gen. Oleksandr Kryvyenko during his visit, Hodges said he was
"impressed by the readiness of both military and civil leadership to
change and reform." The training was requested by the Ukrainian government
"as they work to reform their police forces and establish their newly
formed National Guard," Hillman added. Funding for the initiative is
coming from the congressionally-authorized Global Security Contingency Fund
(GSCF), which was requested by the Obama administration in the fiscal 2015
budget to help train and equip the armed forces of allies around the globe.
The training mission has been the subject of
plenty of discussion among US policy makers for months, and the United States
has already earmarked $19 million to help build the Ukrainian National Guard. "We're
very open to the idea that this becomes a first step in further training for
the Ukrainian military," Derek Chollet, former assistant secretary of
defense for international security affairs, told Defense News just before he
left the Pentagon on Jan. 17.
He was quick to add that he doesn't anticipate
that this training mission "will require significant US presence." The
mission comes at a time of increasing concern among Eastern European countries
that Russian aggression in the region will increase, and as fighting around the
eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk between government forces and Russian-backed
separatist rebels rages on.
Speaking at the Davos conference on Wednesday,
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia of sending 9,000 troops
into the eastern part of his country to back the rebels, a contention that NATO
officials have backed up, but without providing their own estimates for the
number of Russian forces in country. Chollet said Russian military incursions
into the Crimea and eastern Ukraine have refocused American attention on the
region after a decade of fighting two wars in the Middle East. "A year ago
we were worried about the future of the trans-Atlantic relationship, how would
it be relevant to people," he said. "And of course, the events of the
last year with Russia and Ukraine has focused people again on threats to
European security and the unfinished business, really, still coming out of the
end of the Cold War."
One of the biggest challenges for US policy
makers is trying to discern "where could this lead and how does this make
us think anew about European security issues and force posture issues or
defense spending issues?" he added.
In addition to US trainers, Washington is
beginning to provide heavier military equipment to the government in Kiev. On
Monday, the United States delivered the first prototype of an armored "Kozak"
vehicle for use with the Ukrainian border guard, according to the US Embassy
there.
A posting on a US government contracting site
put the cost of the vehicle at $189,000.
The vehicle is built on a chassis manufactured
by Italian company Iveco and features a V-shaped armored hull to help protect
against mines and roadside bombs. The embassy said that to date, "the
United States has delivered dozens of armored pickup trucks and vans to the
Ukrainian Border Guard Service. The Kozak is larger and offers a higher level
of protection."
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