The Pentagon’s top general on Monday visited two sites in Germany used by the U.S. military to enhance the fighting skills of their Ukrainian counterparts, offering encouragement to those on the training field and directing the American soldiers instructing them to squeeze as much as possible into the newly established program before the Ukrainians return to war.
“This is not a run-of-the-mill rotation,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of the curriculum. “This is one of those moments in time where if you want to make a difference, this is it.”
The general’s visit marked his first trip to this facility in the muddy Bavarian countryside since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago. The base, covering roughly 90 square miles, began hosting Ukrainian forces in 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. It’s now the site of a newly expanded regimen for the Ukrainian military, which sent a battalion of more than 600 soldiers to spend up to six weeks learning how to layer tanks, artillery and other weapons to maximize their effects ahead of an expected counteroffensive against Russian forces entrenched on Ukraine territory.