MARIUPOL, Ukraine—As part of a joint Department of Defense-State Department effort to bolster Ukraine’s internal defense capabilities, the United States will be sending Army paratroopers to train Ukraine’s National Guard, a U.S. Army Europe spokesman confirmed to The Daily Signal Monday.
U.S. Army Europe spokesman Donald Wrenn said paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, which is based in Vicenza, Italy, will train six Ukrainian National Guard companies on internal security and territorial defense beginning at the end April.
“There will also be some training for headquarters personnel,” Wrenn said, “focusing on the continued professionalization of Ukrainian staff members.”
In mid-March, the United Kingdom announced it had sent 35 military trainers to Ukraine for a two-month deployment.
The joint U.S.-Ukraine event will take place at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center in the western Ukrainian town of Yavoriv, near the border with Poland and more than 800 miles from the conflict areas.
The mission will be funded by the Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF), which was created in 2012 to pool Pentagon and State Department resources “to carry out security and counterterrorism training, and rule of law programs,” according to a Congressional Research Service report.
While the U.S. has quietly been sending military advisers to Ukraine for months, the upcoming exercise marks the first large-scale deployment of U.S. military personnel to Ukraine since the separatist conflict began last year.
原文链接：http://dailysignal.com/2015/03/30/us-sending-soldiers-to-train-ukraine-national-guard/
