Time to dust off the 80’s foreign policy.
Via Denver Post
The U.S. military plans in March to start training Ukrainian soldiers who are battling Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, a top U.S. military commander in Europe said Wednesday.
U.S. Army Europe Commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges said a battalion of U.S. soldiers would train three battalions of Ukrainians from the Interior Ministry at the Yavariv training center in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
Hodges’ remarks came amid an intensification of fighting in eastern Ukraine, and as French, German, Ukrainian and Russian leaders met Wednesday in Minsk, Belarus, for peace talks whose success is far from certain.
The plans for the training were made many months ago, however.[…]
Hodges accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of arming and fomenting the pro-Russia separatists.
“I think it’s very important to recognize these are not separatists, these are proxies for President Putin,” Hodges said. “It is very obvious from the amount of ammunition, the type of equipment, that there is direct Russian military intervention in the area around Debaltseve.”