KIEV: Hundreds of US paratroopers have arrived in Ukraine to train its forces fighting pro-Russian rebels, the US army said Friday, a move Moscow warned could “destabilise” the war-torn ex-Soviet country.
“Soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade have been arriving over the last week,” Donald Wrenn, a US army spokesman said.
“We will have about 300 soldiers from the brigade on the ground providing the training that will last over the next six months. “The move raised heckles in Moscow, which accuses the United States of backing the protests that brought down Ukraine’s Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych last year. “The participation of instructors and experts from third countries on Ukrainian territory... of course, does not help to resolve the conflict,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Pekov said.
“On the contrary, it can seriously destabilise the situation,” he said, quoted by Russian news agencies.
Following Yanukovych’s ouster and Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, a pro-Russia uprising in east Ukraine sparked a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people and injured nearly 15,500 over the past year, according to the United Nations. It has led to the worst relations between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.
The West accuses Russia of providing the separatists who have taken control of parts of eastern Ukraine with troops and arms, a charge that Moscow denies.
European OSCE observers say heavy arms fire is rumbling on in the east despite a February ceasefire agreement.The US troops will train the National Guard of Ukraine, a reservist force that was reformed in 2014 to bring volunteers and militia under government control.
“We will be conducting classes on war-fighting functions, as well as training to sustain and increase the professionalism and proficiency of military staffs,” Major Jose Mendez, operations officer for the brigade, was quoted as saying on the US army website.
Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2015
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