The one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is approaching fast. The anniversary will likely find the Ukrainians in a much better position than when the war started on February 24.
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But around 18 percent of Ukrainian land, including the Crimean Peninsula, is still under Russian control. And the Ukrainians are getting ready to liberate it with more counteroffensives once the weather permits it.
To enable the Ukrainian military to liberate the rest of the country and bring the brutal conflict to a quicker end, the U.S. military is expanding the training it is providing to the Ukrainian forces.
Expanding the Training for Ukraine
The U.S. military is increasing the training it is providing to the Ukrainian forces with a new training course at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany.
The course aims to make Ukrainian troops proficient in combined arms warfare, that is, the coordinated employment of armor, artillery, infantry, airpower, and other methods of war. With a duration of five or six weeks, the new course will initially train 500 Ukrainian troops.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army General Mark Milley told the Washington Post that it would take some time, suggesting a timeframe of between five to eight weeks, before the Ukrainian troops are combat-ready and can proficiently use any new weapon systems.
“We want the Ukrainians to have a capability to successfully defend their country. Ukraine is doing nothing more than defending itself, and they are trying to liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine,” Milley said.
The Ukrainian upcoming counteroffensives will require better coordination between combat arms as well as more training for the Ukrainian troops on the new weapon systems.
But the U.S. isn’t the only country helping with the training of the Ukrainian forces.
The British Contribution
The United Kingdom is also playing a big role in training the Ukrainian military to undertake further counteroffensives.
For several months now, the Ukrainian military has been sending batches of new recruits to the U.K. to go through boot camp and advanced infantry training. The courses last approximately ten weeks and train 10,000 troops at a time.
But technical proficiency in the new weapon systems Ukraine is receiving is equally important. Ukrainian troops will start training on the British Challenger 2 main battle tank “almost immediately,” according to British Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace; London is giving Kyiv a company of 14 Challenger 2 tanks.
Like most of the training on the weapon systems the Ukrainian military has been receiving, training on the Challenger 2 tank will take place in neighboring countries, such as Germany and Poland.
February 24 will mark one year since Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine. His campaign has gone terribly wrong, and the Russian forces have suffered devastating losses as a result.
More than 100,000 Russian troops have been killed and wounded in the war, and the Russian military has lost thousands of tanks, artillery pieces, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, unmanned aerial systems, and other weapon systems.
The Ukrainian military is getting ready to press on with its large-scale counteroffensives. And right now, it feels like the Russians can do little to stop them.
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Expert Biography: A 19FortyFive Defense and National Security Columnist, Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.
Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated to reflect a small error in the headline.
pagar
January 17, 2023 at 7:57 pm
Putin in feb 2022 decided he’s had more than enough of the globalist fascismo nonsense that US and NATO were peddling and still hawking today.
Thus the special military operation to do a really big number on the ukro foot soldiers of US and NATO.
Now, the ukros are gettimg beat in places like dnipro and soledar, with zelenskiyy screaming for tanks and patriots.
What happened to all the billions of greenbacks / eoros and himars and javelins delivered earlier. Already on the black market or in the donbass possession or both.
Short of b61 nukes, the ukros are kaput. Finished. Putin will crush them like the way Red Army did to hitler’s SS and wehrmacht units in 1945.
Serhio
January 17, 2023 at 9:54 pm
“The one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is approaching fast. The anniversary will likely find the Ukrainians in a much better position than when the war started on February 24. ”
Of course, the situation in Ukraine is much better than a year ago. Ukrainians talked so much about their hatred of the USSR and its legacy that Putin decided to help them get rid of the cursed legacy of the USSR: developed industry and energy. A little more and there will be no industry and energy in Ukraine, built by the hated communists. It remains to give the Russian lands that were added to Ukraine by Lenin and Stalin and we can assume that the age-old dream of Ukrainians has come true.
TrustbutVerify
January 18, 2023 at 8:28 am
Pagar, I think you need to look at a map. Dnipro is about 140 miles west of the front lines in the east around Soledar…and about 70 miles north of the Russians in the south.
The tanks are for an armored spearhead to do the same thing in the south that did around Kharkiv, but this time rupturing the Russian lines in the South to the Sea of Azov as they split the front and disrupt Russian resupply and operational maneuver capabilities.
So, while the Russians are wasting troops in Bahkmut and Soledar, the Ukrainians are preparing to flank them.
But you go ahead and keep spouting this Russian nonsense. It will all prove out in the end, just as it has played out since last February.
Alejandro Pelota
January 18, 2023 at 10:46 am
It astounds me how people can fabricate and construct out of thin air a version of events that makes them feel good about themselves,
regardless of reality, just blurting out pure hopeful thinking delusions for a dopamine hit and a few likes…
phil stacy
January 18, 2023 at 11:01 am
A Dick Cheney website.
FREDERICK BAUMANN
January 18, 2023 at 12:11 pm
Journalism Pro-Tip of the Day: ALWAYS PROOFREAD HEADLINES!
For example:
“Putin’s Ukraine Disaster: Russia Looks Destined To For Defeat?”
nedphotog
January 18, 2023 at 12:31 pm
I’m surprised they would quote disgraced traitor, Milley, in this article. He is by no means an authority on the military and should not be wearing his uniform. He was outed as an agent for China when it was revealed that he promised China to warn them if the U.S. was about to attack and he also pledged to ignore direct orders from the President of the United States, his Commander in Chief. He should be court marshalled, tried, convicted, and hanged. Yet he is quoted in this article. Disgraceful.
Bertram
January 18, 2023 at 1:47 pm
Russia will run out of live conscripts willing to sit in place before Ukraine runs out of bullets and missiles.
Its always amusing to see the Russian Troll Farm propaganda.
Where are the missiles you ask?
Two of the neptune missles are sitting inside the Moskva at the bottom of the Black Sea.
Javelin antitank missiles are in too many places to list. Russian tanks seem to be far easier to destroy than anticipated, but it sending the Moskva to the bottom was what really stung, wasn’t it? har har.
John T
January 18, 2023 at 8:23 pm
Based on my observation, Russia and Ukraine are now engaged in a war of attrition. Based on Ukraine’s recent battlefield loses, I doubt that the Ukrainians will last more the two or three months. Remember, there are 147,000,000 Russians and only 40,000,000 Ukrainians.
dave
January 19, 2023 at 4:27 am
The war stories here are complete propaganda. Reality is already setting in on the front. Ukraine never had a chance.The ukrainian population is finally seeing through their media propaganda the war is not going well.Republican Senator Graham is really happy Ukraine is fighting to the last Ukrainian person. The country was destroyed for nothing by NATO.