Exclusive Dispatch: US Guardsmen Train Ukrainian Troops for a New Kind of War | Jun 18, 2021 |

YAVORIV, Ukraine --this former Soviet military base located some 750 miles to the west of Ukraine's eastern war zone, the sounds of tank shots, machine guns, and small arms fire snarl throughout the course of this sweltering June afternoon.
The Yavoriv International Peacekeeping and Security Centre was once a major meeting place for military leaders of the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet-led military alliance that opposed NATO during the Cold War. Some 30 years after the Soviet Union's demise, the base is now home to a profoundly different mission.

Under the watchful eye of about 130 US Army National Guardsmen, Ukrainian troops are training for combat against Russia, their former Soviet ally, as well as to operate alongside NATO militaries. For the Ukrainians, the training mission is an invaluable opportunity to hone their combat skills and professionalize their military according to NATO standards. For the Americans, their time at Yavoriv is a blunt reality check.

After two decades of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is now neck-deep in a new era of great power competition against near-peer adversaries such as China and Russia. Thus, daily interactions with their Ukrainian counterparts remind the US troops based at Yavoriv that the next war America fights will likely be far different, and far more lethal, than the last.

"It is definitely a change of pace" from "what we're used to -- especially the twilight years in Iraq and Afghanistan," Capt. Chris Rothwell of the Washington Army National Guard told Coffee or Die Magazine.

Biden Is Running Out of Time to Help Ukraine Fend Off Russia | Foreign Policy - Dec 6, 2021 |

Kyiv's pleas for more U.S. guns to hold off Moscow have prompted a political knife fight in Washington.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov [appointed early November this year - Oui] came to his American counterpart Lloyd Austin's third-floor Pentagon office with an unusually large request: He needed weapons systems, including many that the United States had never before provided to Ukraine, and he needed them fast.

Ukraine was, and still is, asking the Biden administration for a wide range of capabilities that officials hope could change Russia's calculus about launching another invasion of the country. The list, which was first detailed by Reznikov to Austin in mid-November and has not been previously reported in detail, includes support for air and naval defense and electronic warfare--a potential shield against devastating bombings and electromagnetic attacks that would likely accompany any forward march across Ukraine by Russian mechanized forces.

Kyiv is also seeking some of the U.S. military equipment earmarked for Afghanistan before the fall of Kabul, including U.S.-owned Soviet-era Mi-17 helicopters undergoing maintenance in Ukraine and munitions that were initially intended to be sent to the Afghan army, according to a Ukrainian defense official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive bilateral talks.

Scoop: U.S. eyes training Ukrainian troops remotely | Axios - Feb 22, 2022 |

Have a peaceful cultural summer

When Russia bombed the base near Lviv last night, it had to assume Americans were likely to be killed or injured. A coordinator of foreign volunteers in Ukraine told me the base was a hub for 1000s of them, coming from all over to help Ukraine. I met some from US, UK, Australia.

Simon Shuster (@shustry)

An important note: this American is a special ops veteran who completed combat deployments to Afghanistan. He came to Ukraine before Russia's full-scale war on Feb. 24. He is an experienced, well-trained soldier who gave up his lucrative career in the US in order to help Ukraine

— Nolan Peterson (@nolanwpeterson) March 13, 2022

Russia sends message with Yavoriv strike but attack on Poland unlikely [_link]

— The Guardian (@guardian) March 13, 2022