Brig. Gen. Tony Aguto, the commanding general of 7th Army Training Command, visited the International Peacekeeping and Security Center, near Yavoriv, Ukraine, this week to assess the progress of Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine and to address the U.S. Soldiers, of the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Oklahoma Army National Guard, who assumed the JMTG-U mission in January.



“There’s a reason we went to Oklahoma to ask for this brigade,” said Aguto. “You were recommended by name, you are the most ready, most highly trained brigade in the U.S. Army National Guard.”



The primary objective of the JMTG-U mission is to enable the Ukrainians troops to train independently. Their goal is to become NATO interoperable by 2020.



The JMTG-U mission encompasses several lines of effort. Aguto emphasized the importance of Ukrainian training-battalion rotations, as well as non-commissioned officer development, which contributes to the training’s success.



Training is the foundation of the JMTG-U mission.



Four Ukrainian army battalions will conduct training this year at IPSC under the supervision of U.S., Canadian, British, Lithuanian and Polish forces working in concert through their respective countries.



The battalions will train on everything from individual soldier-readiness tasks all the way to battalion-level staff operations.



Individual Ukrainian soldiers will learn how to shoot, move and communicate. They’ll also be taught basic, tactical medical care and map-reading skills.



Ukrainian NCOs will be pushed to take on more responsibility.



Right now, U.S. forces spend anywhere from 18 to 21 days focusing on individual training.



“Enabling the Ukrainian NCOs to train and teach their younger soldiers, while still at home station, will buy us valuable, extra training time, here, to focus on company- and battalion-level maneuvers,” said Aguto.



When the U.S. first assumed the JMTG-U mission, not all the Ukrainian soldiers were entering the army with the same proficiencies, explained Aguto. These basic, individual soldier skills are now the basis of their doctrine and are uniform across the entire Ukrainian army. He continued, saying that the Ukrainians are now capable of training independently at the platoon-level and below.



The first rotational training-battalion of 2017, the 1st Battalion, 28th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, will progress through the standardized, individual soldier training, and will then complete platoon-, section-, and company-level training. The Ukrainian combat training center staff will independently teach all that they can, and partnered and allied nations will step in to assist only as needed. The culminating event for the rotation will be a U.S.-supervised, battalion-level, simulated exercise.



The training portion of the JMTG-U mission is progressing faster than expected.



Brigade-level operations were originally projected to start in 2018, but thanks to a forward-leaning Ukrainian brigade commander, the 28th Mechanized Infantry Brigade will be the first to conduct a brigade-level, simulated training exercise with U.S. staff mentors.



“We would train these battalions to operate within NATO standards, teach them how a staff operates, how a staff works together and then, when they got plugged back into their brigade, they weren’t always speaking the same language,” said Aguto. “This brigade commander noticed the capability gap and asked us to help.”



If the brigade-level simulation is successful, other Ukrainian brigades may follow suit.



That will be up to the Ukrainian general's staff, said Aguto. “Regardless, we’ll learn from it and it will make all of us better.”



“I have seen this mission grow exponentially, just in the few months I’ve been in command,” said Aguto. “I’ve seen that the Ukrainians want to do well and that they want to take on more, and that’s very encouraging.”

NEWS INFO Date Taken: 02.02.2017 Date Posted: 02.02.2017 09:28 Story ID: 222267 Location: YAVORIV, UA Web Views: 2,208 Downloads: 0 Podcast Hits: 0 PUBLIC DOMAIN This work, Top Brass Talks Training in Ukraine, by CPT Kayla Christopher, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.