You're reading: Help! World wakes up slowly on need to stop Putin

Slowly, the West is realizing that Ukraine needs help to prevail in Russia's war against the nation. Several countries are now sending military personnel to train the Ukrainian army. While not weapons, better training is also a crucial element of warfare.

The total number of trainers will be 75. They will work in western Ukraine, far from the war zone in the eastern Donbas. The first group of British trainers is expected in Kyiv to meet with military authorities in the next week, Colonel Andriy Ordynovych, deputy head of the department for international cooperation at General Staff, told the Kyiv Post.

Poland is also considering sending its military instructors to Ukraine, Bogusław Pacek, retired general and adviser to the Polish Defense Ministry, wrote on Twitter on Feb. 25. Pacek said that the Polish military instructors will most probably be sent to Yavoriv and Desna training centers and provide training on reconnaissance systems, but the final decision on number and activities will be made in March.

All countries sending trainers went to great pains to stress their service personnel would stay away from the frontlines. Audrius Butkevicius, a former Lithuanian minister of defense, says the West is moving cautiously to make sure their aid does not tip the situation into a multi-nation conflict. “Russia is testing the West in this situation, because they want to see how far they would go in their help to Ukraine,” he says.

Ongoing training


Ukrainian soldiers repair an armored personnel carrier at a checkpoint in Luhanske near Debaltseve in Donetsk Oblast on Feb. 19. (Anastasia Vlasova)

Ordynovych of the General Staff says that in 2014 the number of trainings in Ukraine more than doubled, and is set to swell again this year. Several dozen U.S. military personnel have visited Ukraine since to go through all parliamentary procedures, according to Ordynovych.

Not enough, of course

Chris Donnelly, a British defense, security and foreign affairs specialist and former special adviser to four secretary generals of NATO, admits that Ukraine needs to have its General Staff trained. Its commanders are frequently accused of cowardice, incompetence and mismanagement, resulting in needless deaths in the field and loss of gear.

Donnelly believes that generals would benefit from the UK training. The duration, however, will depend on “how successful the initiative proves to be,” Donnelly says.

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron delivers a speech to business leaders at a UK Investment Summit at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, south Wales, on Nov. 21. (AFP)

Butkevicius, the former Lithuanian defense minister, says: “Ukrainian commanders should learn effective management of the operations, otherwise the army will suffer great losses. The biggest challenge for the Ukrainian army and something it should definitely learn from Western colleagues – is battle management. It would be a surprise for your enemy.”

News of the arrival of foreign trainers was greeted with skepticism by Ukrainian soldiers at the frontlines.

A commander of a military battalion, whose nom-de-guerre is Sobol, is defending the village of Shyrokine near Mariupol. He said that foreign instructors cannot work with outdated Ukrainian weapons and military equipment. “If they want to help, then they should give us new military equipment, which we badly need,” he said, adding that it could be drones, missile launchers and sniper equipment.

Donnelly disagrees. “I think this is just the sort of help Ukraine needs now,” he told the Kyiv Post. “The British army obviously brings considerable operational experience and a pretty good reputation. The long-term benefit from training can far outweigh gifting equipment where it enables equipment to better employed to achieve tactical effect.”

Debate to arm Ukraine

There is an ongoing debate in the West about arming Ukraine. “If, in fact, diplomacy fails, what I’ve asked my team to do is to look at all options,” U.S. President Barack Obama said on Feb. 9 .

But skeptics argue that arming Ukraine is dangerous because the weapons might end up in separatist hands. It nearly happened with two American radar systems delivered in the fall. The U.S. in November reported that it would supply 20 radar systems that are capable of determining the origin of fire, and targeting response fire.

After the Ukrainian soldiers’ exit from Debaltseve in Donetsk Oblast earlier this month, Russia-backed separatists posted a video on YouTube that featured U.S.-made equipment marked with the letters AN/TPQ, which refers to their modification, according to Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov.

The parliament’s military committee held an inquiry into the incident, and learned that of two radar systems in Debaltseve, one was destroyed by enemy fire, and the other was blown up on purpose as the Ukrainian troops left their position.

“The separatists captured only the repair kits,” Vladislav Seleznyov, spokesman of General Staff, said.

Sergiy Pashynsky, head of parliament committee on defense, told the Kyiv Post that he received “persuasive proof” that the U.S. radar systems have not ended up in separatists hands, but added that the parliamentary probe is ongoing.

Buying weapons

In the meantime, Ukraine has been trying to buy some weapons.

On Feb. 24, President Petro Poroshenko visited the Arab Emirates and said Ukraine had signed a contract worth millions of dollars to buy military gear. He said that the first armored vehicles have already been delivered to Ukraine.

But UAE have no military production and are instead the fourth largest arms buyer in the world, according to a Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report published in March 2014. About 60 percent of military purchases of the UAE were coming from the U.S., 35 percent from France and 2 percent from Russia, according to data from the same institute in 2010.

Although details of the Ukrainian contract were not disclosed, experts say that the weapons purchased by Ukraine could be old stockpiles.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko looks at a weapon during a visit to the 12th International Defense Exhibition IDEX-2015 in Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates on Feb. 24. (AFP)

“Old doesn’t mean bad. They could be the weapons of previous generations,” Mykola Sungurovsky, military expert of Razumkov Center political think tank, said in an interview with Gordonua.com.

Ukraine may also buy military radars, sniper gear and order the modernization of its T-72 tanks in Poland, the influential Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported on Feb. 22.

Kyiv Post staff writers Oksana Grytsenko and Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]. Kyiv Post photo journalist Anastasia Vlasova contributed reporting to the story from Shyrokine.

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