US sending around 600 paratroopers to Ukraine to train troops

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

A battalion of around 600 American paratroopers will be heading to Ukraine next month to train national guard troops there, a Pentagon spokesman told Fox News Wednesday.

 

The unit heading to the war-torn country is from the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, based out of Vicenza, Italy.

 

The training is to take place at the Yavariv training center in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, U.S. Army Europe Commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges said, according to The Associated Press.

 

Hodges said the Americans will train the Ukrainians how to better defend themselves against "Russian and rebel artillery and rockets." Training also will include securing roads, bridges and other infrastructure and treating and evacuating casualties.

 

He spoke during a visit to NATO's Multinational Corps Northeast Headquarters in the Polish city of Szczecin.

 

The announcement came as fighting raged in eastern Ukraine Wednesday, killing five people at a bus station in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk. Western leaders confirmed that they would take part in peace talks later in the day.

 

Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said she and French President Francois Hollande would travel to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, to attend the four-way summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

 

European leaders have warned that there is no guarantee a deal will be reached with Moscow, which the West says is fueling a separatist rising in eastern Ukraine with troops and arms. Germany and France have rushed to mediate after a recent uptick in violence in the region, where fighting has killed at least 5,300 people since April.

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Creeping escalation.

[Valin]

Something that should have done a year ago.