Photo By Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Tarr | YAVORIV, Ukraine--Maj. Sorovtsev Anatoliy, senior instructor assigned to the Ukrainian...... read more read more Photo By Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Tarr | YAVORIV, Ukraine--Maj. Sorovtsev Anatoliy, senior instructor assigned to the Ukrainian Demining Training Center shows Soldiers assigned to 720th Ordnance Company (EOD), out of Germany, a live round that was found on one of the closed training sites, Oct. 19, at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center. The Soldiers assigned to OD Company worked hand-in-hand with Ukrainian sappers at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center from Oct. 10-Oct. 22 to share knowledge on how to mitigate the UXO risk on training areas used by the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine. JMTGU’s mission is about building sustainable, enduring training capacity and capability within Ukrainian Armed Forces. (Photo by Army Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Tarr) see less | View Image Page

YAVORIV, Ukraine—An explosive ordnance disposal team assigned to 720th Ordnance Company (EOD), out of Germany, worked hand-in-hand with Ukrainian sappers at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center from Oct. 10-Oct. 22 to share knowledge on how to mitigate the UXO risk on training areas used by the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine.



“We came down here to open up ties between the Ukrainian EOD and ourselves,” said 1st Sergeant Ben Brinkmeyer, noncommissioned officer in charge of 720th OD Co. “We came here to help them with the way forward of cleaning up their ranges and create a response force to make it a safer place for U.S. training to happen here.”



Some of the land was previously used as a live-fire training area and still contains munitions from the former Soviet Union and explosive remnants of war from as far back as World War II. A portion of the training area is shut down due to the large saturation of UXO’s.



In the U.S., if a UXO is found on a training lane, the lane is immediately closed and an EOD team will properly dispose of the munitions and then open back up the training site to continue training.



“In Ukraine, they don’t have a dedicated EOD team to clear the lane and it can take days to open back up the training lane,” Brinkmeyer said.



During their visit, a 125-millimeter round was found on one of the closed training sites. It afforded the U.S. EOD team the opportunity to train with the Ukrainian sappers and view their procedures on how they properly dispose of the live munitions.



“From what I’ve seen from their training, they are very safe with their explosives and their procedures,” said Brinkmeyer. “Just on the basic demo side, things have been very positive and safe.”



Capt. Mathew Wharton, company commander of the 720th OD Company added that he was also impressed with the professionalism of the Ukrainian sappers.



“Working with our Ukrainian counterparts has been phenomenal,” he said. “They are more trained than I anticipated to the point where we were able to learn different tactics from them.”



To alleviate the saturation of UXO’s, a contract was put in place to begin extracting the munitions from approximately 17.7 square miles of land, beginning March 2017, in accordance with the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS).



“The goal is to provide that coverage, not only for the contract, but to provide supplementary training as well as response,” said Brinkmeyer. “If they continually have UXO’s and nobody is cleaning them up, we’re going to continue to have this problem.”



The EOD command team’s recommendation for the way ahead is having U.S. EOD coverage within the training compound to continue to train and work with Ukrainian sappers.



“We have a badge, and behind the bomb is a shield and that’s to represent the protection of life and property,” said Wharton. “So as long as we are hitting those benchmarks to protect the people, I am content.”



Clearing UXO’s from 17.7 square miles of training area is just one example of JMTG-U’s ongoing efforts to contribute to Ukraine's long-term military reform and professionalism to help improve the country's internal defense capabilities and training capacity.