Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder in its press briefing on March 30 at the Pentagon said that, since Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022, U.S. European Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa and Security Assistance Group Ukraine have trained more than 7,000 members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
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M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle (Picture source: Army Recognition)
Just this week, 65 Ukrainian air defenders completed Patriot training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and have now arrived back in Europe. They're integrating with other Ukrainian air defenders, along with donated Patriot air defense equipment from the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. Once in Ukraine, the Patriot air defense system will add to Ukraine's layered air defenses to provide protection and shield from Russia's wanton, brutal attacks on innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Meanwhile in Germany, at the close of this month, more than 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers and two brigades, one equipped with M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and one equipped with Stryker ICVs will have completed combined-arms training and have returned to Ukraine.
Additional combined-arms training is currently underway at Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels training areas in Germany, with two motorized infantry battalions consisting of 1,200 Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel. Operator and maintenance training on donated platforms is also ongoing, with more than 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers having completed platform training and 40 different programs of instruction on more than 20 systems since April of 2022.
Training for Ukrainian Forces is an international effort being conducted in partnership with coalition partners, who are currently training more than 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers across 26 different nations.
Let us remind that, on January 19, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown of security assistance to meet Ukraine's critical security and defense needs. This authorization, which is valued at up to $2.5 billion, is the Biden Administration's 30th drawdown of equipment from DoD inventories for Ukraine since August 2021. The new U.S. military aid package for Ukraine includes 59 additional Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs) with 590 TOW anti-tank missiles and 295,000 rounds of 25mm ammunition and 90 Stryker Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) with 20 mine rollers. The 59 Bradley IFVs included in this package, together with the 50 Bradleys previously committed on January 6, and the 90 Stryker APCs will provide Ukraine with two brigades of armored capability.
Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle - Dragoon (ICVD) with a new 30mm chaingun (Picture source: U.S. Army/Sgt. Timothy Hamlin)
Defense News April 2023
