Kiev’s military officers took part in multi-day table-top exercises, General Mark Milley has announced
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley © Getty Images / Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency
A number of Ukrainian military personnel have taken part in tactical exercises hosted by the US at a war-gaming facility in Germany this week, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, announced on Thursday.
The table-top exercises, attended by dozens of Ukrainian officers at a US Army base in Wiesbaden, were meant to help Kiev’s commanders prepare for the next phase in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Milley said. He declined, however, to share any details about specific potential battlefield scenarios examined during the drills.
“No one is sitting there telling the Ukrainians, go left or go right or do this or do that. That is not the job of the international community,” Milley explained. “All we’re doing is setting up the framework and the mechanics to allow the Ukrainians to self-learn, to learn against a situation, or various scenarios.”
The news comes as Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been signaling a major counteroffensive with the intent of trying to seize control of Russia’s Crimean peninsula. Last week, he announced that new units were being formed specifically for the task, with servicemen undergoing training abroad.
Zelensky and other top officials in Kiev have repeatedly pledged to capture former Ukrainian territories from Russia. Specifically, this refers to Crimea, which broke away from Ukraine 2014 and joined Russia after holding a public referendum, and the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson, which were also incorporated into Russia after referendums last September.
Moscow, meanwhile, has repeatedly warned Kiev against plotting an assault on Crimea. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has stated that an attack on the peninsula would be interpreted as a direct attack on Russia itself and would be “met with inevitable retaliation using weapons of any kind.”
