US now training Ukrainian forces in Germany, Defense Department says
From CNN's Michael Conte and Oren Liebermann
The US has begun additional training for Ukrainian armed forces at US military installations in Germany, the Defense Department announced.
“These efforts build on the initial artillery training that Ukraine’s forces already have received elsewhere, and also includes training on the radar systems and armored vehicles that have been recently announced as part of security assistance packages,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said at a news briefing with reporters.
Kirby said that Germany is one of “roughly three” sites being used by the US to train Ukrainians outside of Ukraine, but would not disclose the others.
He also said “the bulk of the training” will be conducted by the Florida National Guard who had been training Ukrainians before being repositioned out of Ukraine in February prior to the Russian invasion.
“The recent reunion now of these Florida National Guard members with their Ukrainian colleagues, we are told, was an emotional meeting, given the strong bonds that were formed as they were living and working together before temporarily parting ways in February,” Kirby said.
Meanwhile, a senior US defense official said Friday that "more than a dozen flights” carrying military assistance for Ukraine from the US are expected to arrive in the European region for transport into Ukraine “in the next 24 hours."
Those flights will include shipments of “Howitzers, more 155 rounds, some of those Phoenix Ghost UAVs and even some of the radars that we talked about,” the official said.
This security assistance is all coming from US President Joe Biden’s latest presidential drawdown authority package, the official added, saying that 155 artillery rounds “continue to flow into Ukraine even over the last 24 hours."
In the last 24 hours, “there have been almost 20 deliveries via airlift from seven different nations,” of security assistance, the official said.
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ru ... ace9322dd5
The Western artillery flooding into Ukraine will alter the war with Russia, setting off a bloody battle of wits backed by long-range weapons and forcing both sides to grow more nimble if they hope to avoid significant fatalities as fighting intensifies in the east, U.S. officials and military analysts predict.
The expanded artillery battle follows Russia’s failed effort to rapidly seize Ukraine’s major population centers, including the capital, Kyiv. It comes as the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Western benefactors brace for what is expected to be a grinding campaign in the Donbas region. The conflict there is expected to showcase the long-range cannons that are a centerpiece of Russia’s arsenal, weaponry already used to devastating effect in places such as Mariupol, a southern port city that has been pulverized by unrelenting bombardment.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking alongside his Canadian counterpart at the Pentagon on Thursday, said long-range artillery will prove “decisive” in the next phase of the war. The Biden administration, which along with Canada is training small numbers of Ukrainian troops how to operate the dozens of 155 mm howitzers that both countries have pledged to provide, is expected to approve the transfer of even more artillery to Ukraine in the coming days, Austin said.
The U.S. and Canadian howitzers bound for Ukraine are towed on trailers, while those pledged by France — systems known as self-propelled Caesar howitzers — fire the same 155 mm explosive rounds, but from the back of a truck chassis.
The United States alone already has promised Zelensky nearly 190,000 artillery rounds, plus 90 howitzers to fire them. As of Thursday, more than half had arrived in Ukraine, said a senior U.S. defense official who, like some others, spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the administration.
A new $33 billion request to Congress for additional Ukraine aid includes proposed funding for “longer-range artillery of a heavier caliber,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers on Capitol Hill, though he stopped short of identifying which specific systems are under consideration. Other allies, such as Britain and Sweden, also could send artillery, analysts said.
To date, Russia and Ukraine have traded fire using some of the same systems, including the powerful 300 mm Smerch multiple-launch rocket system, which can shoot rounds some 55 miles, and aging 122 mm howitzers first fielded in the 1960s. The introduction of various Western artillery pieces is expected to accelerate a tactical shift by both sides to employ what is known as counter-battery fire, in which military forces seek out their enemy’s artillery, determine its location and attack, analysts said.
“You’re trying to find, fix and finish,” said George Flynn, a retired three-star Marine general and former artillery officer. “You want to find the enemy howitzers. You want to fix their position. And then you want to finish them off. That’s the essence of targeting.”
After an artillery unit attacks an adversary, it needs to keep moving, Flynn said. “Once you get into a counter-battery fight, it’s shoot and scoot,” he added. “You don’t stick around and let yourself get targeted.”
Ukraine’s ability to target Russian artillery units is especially important, analysts say, because of the Kremlin’s demonstrated willingness to lob round after round into cities and towns, destroying civilian homes and infrastructure. “Just the existence” of more Ukrainian artillery units performing counter-battery fire will degrade Russia’s ability to “sit there, pile up ammo and go to town,” said Scott Boston, a former U.S. Army field artillery officer who studies the Russian military for the Rand Corp.
“The problem” that Ukraine and its Western allies would “like to impose on the Russians,” he said, “is for them to never have confidence that a headquarters, or a key ammunition dump, or an important cluster of firing platforms, can ever be stationary for very long.”
The Pentagon on Friday assessed that Russia has not been as effective as it would like at using long-range artillery. A senior defense official noted that, as the West continues to send so much artillery to Ukraine, “this could become a bit of a gun battle.”
Artillery units often disguise themselves with camouflage or other forms of cover, and it can require a mixture of intelligence, unmanned aircraft and radar to spot them. The West is providing Ukraine with drones and counter-battery radar to do just that.
While the West has promised tens of thousands of artillery rounds to Ukraine, they may be depleted quickly, Cranny-Evans said, requiring defense contractors to ramp up production. Russia also has a significant advantage in the number of artillery pieces it possesses, and it’s unclear how many of Ukraine’s legacy systems are still operational or how much ammunition is available for them, he added.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... artillery/
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