U.S. paratroopers on Monday began training the first of three Ukrainian national guard units in an operation intended to improve the fighting capabilities of the irregular troops that have been on the front lines of the year-old battle against Russian-backed separatists in the country’s east.

Operation Fearless Guardian, as the U.S. mission is called, was inaugurated with a rain-drenched welcoming speech by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and appeals by security officials for imparting the war-fighting skills of which Ukrainian troops are in dire need.

Speaking at the Yavoriv training center near Lviv in western Ukraine, Poroshenko described the war against pro-Russia separatists in the Donbas industrial area 800 miles to the east as “not only a battle for independent Ukraine, it is also a battle for freedom and democracy in Europe and worldwide,” Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov noted in his address to the U.S. trainers and the first battalion of national guard volunteers that the Americans have experience in fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan that Ukrainian officials hope can be imparted to their own troops.

“The U.S. special task force has experience received in operations worldwide, and we want to use this experience. Wars are won by skills, not weapons,” Avakov said.