Monday, April 20, 2015

• US, Ukraine start military training, defying Russian fury - AP

AP
YAVORIV, Ukraine (AP) — Troops from the United States and Ukraine kicked off joint training exercises Monday intended to help bolster Ukraine's defenses against incursions from Russian-backed separatists in the east

 
Speaking under driving rain at a military base in the western region of Lviv, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the country's armed forces needed to be rebuilt from scratch to deter foreign threats.

The exercises, dubbed "Fearless Guardian-2015," sparked an enraged reaction from Russia, which described them as a potential cause of destabilization. Moscow continues to dismiss mounting evidence of its involvement in fomenting and supporting a separatist insurgency in Ukraine that has claimed more than 6,100 lives over the past year.

The 300 U.S. Army paratroopers involved in the training traveled to Ukraine last week and will be working alongside 900 national guardsmen.

"The majority of the participants here from the Ukrainian side have endured difficult trials on the front," Poroshenko said at the inauguration ceremony for the exercises.

Fighting in the east has ebbed substantially since the signing of a February cease-fire deal, but sporadic clashes still break out along the 450-kilometer front line separating government and rebel forces.

The truce deal includes provisions for all "armed formations" to be pulled out of the country. While Kiev interprets that language as being aimed at the Russian forces that Moscow denies are in Ukraine, the Kremlin has argued the United States is implicitly violating the cease-fire deal by stationing its military trainers in the country.

Training for Ukrainian troops is part of a broader package of assistance being provided by the United States. President Barack Obama's administration has said it will provide Ukraine's military with $75 million in nonlethal aid, but has refrained so far from offering lethal equipment, despite calls from Congress to do so.

Last month, Ukraine began receipt of a planned consignment of 230 Humvees from the United States.

National guard units, many of which began as volunteer groupings, have been an important part of Ukrainian forces' fighting against the separatists. Two national guard units, working on weeklong rotations, are holding part of the village of Shyrokyne, currently the most fraught location in the east.

Ukrainian forces in Shyrokyne said Monday that unrest there had subsided since the arrival of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Azov Battalion, which is leading the government's fight for the village, said heavy shelling had stopped, but reported a continuation of small arms fire.

"As of 11 a.m., despite the fact that OSCE observers are working in Shyrokyne, snipers are still targeting Azov positions," the battalion said in a statement.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Army paratroopers began military training for small units of the Ukrainian national guard on Monday despite Russian warnings that the action could destabilize the country's tenuous cease-fire.

Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said 300 members of the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade based in Vicenza, Italy, began long-planned training for about 300 Ukrainians at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center at Yavoriv, in western Ukraine near the Polish border.

The unit is expected to train 900 guardsmen in three rotations over six months, Warren said. He said the training included everything from medical care and casualty evacuation to how to shoot and move as part of a small military unit.

He rejected Russia's suggestions the U.S. action was destabilizing.

"I would say it's Russia that is destabilizing Ukraine," Warren said. "They are the ones who are continuing to supply lethal weapons. They are continuing to send Russian forces, combat forces, into Ukraine."

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko later on Monday about the crisis and offered an additional $17.7 million in aid for essentials like food, shelter and water.

Biden and Poroshenko also discussed Ukraine's reform efforts, including a new anti-corruption chief, antitrust measures and judicial reform, the White House said in a statement.

Last Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin again denied Western allegations that Moscow provides separatists with soldiers and weapons.

Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after street protests toppled a Moscow-allied Ukrainian president in Kiev who had scrapped a deal to move closer to the European Union.

Separatist fighting then spread to Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine, where clashes between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian forces have killed about 6,000 people.

Ukraine and the United States have accused Russia of interfering in the conflict, but Moscow charges that Washington's efforts to bring Kiev closer to the West were responsible for the violence.

The United States said it delayed the training mission for several weeks to avoid increasing tensions as a ceasefire went into effect. While the cease-fire has held, violence and violations are reported almost daily.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow last week the participation of third country specialists "could destabilize the situation."

Pentagon spokesman Warren played down those concerns. He said the mission was suitable for national guardsmen and included defensive and civil-military operations such as countering improvised explosive devices.
 

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