US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visits US Army Garrison Wiesbaden to discuss Ukrainian military training and hand out challenge coins to those leading the charge. (Breaking Defense/Ashley Roque)
US ARMY GARRISON WIESBADEN, GERMANY — US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Germany earlier today to receive updates about efforts to provide new equipment to Ukrainian troops and train them on it, including the latest on M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks.
“I want to commend you as a combined and joint force for the things that you’ve done very rapidly to deploy some, some sophisticated platforms, to Ukraine, but most important, to train people on how to use them,” Austin said today, addressing a multi-national group of troops including Americans, Ukrainians and partner nations.
“I described this as a set of successive miracles that you’ve linked together,” he later added. “In very short order, you’ve trained a substantial number of troops and you’ve deployed equipment into Ukraine. It was absolutely phenomenal to watch.”
Since late-February 2022, the US has trained more than 11,400 Ukrainian military personnel on how to operate a host of weapons like Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Stryker armored personnel carriers, M113 armored personnel carriers, Patriot launchers, and 142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers.
An additional 1,700 Ukrainian service members are also in the US training pipeline in locations like Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels, Germany, including 200 now in their third week of training on how to operate M1 Abrams main battle tanks, a senior US Army Europe and Africa official told reporters via phone today. Those troops include a mix of experienced tankers and other “well-trained” soldiers who began “picking it up and learning” how to operate the tanks on May 25 in Grafenwoehr.
The training course is expected to last approximately 12 weeks and kicks off with individual and platoon training before the Ukrainians and tanks move to Hohenfels, where they will have more space for force-on-force training.
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If all goes as planned, around the time that training wraps up in late-summer, Kyiv will have received the 31 tanks it will ultimately operate on the battlefield.
After the stop in Germany, Austin traveled to Brussels, where he’ll be joined by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Mark Milley to represent the United States during a pair of meetings that kick off on Thursday. (Breaking Defense is traveling with Austin during this trip.)
During Thursday’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group event, members are poised to examine ways to bolster weapon production, Ukrainian troop training, and possible future weapons that could make their way into Ukraine. Then, at Friday’s NATO Defense Ministerial event, Austin plans to spend the day talking about NATO standardization, countries’ defense spending levels, and emphasizing the importance of Sweden joining NATO by the Vilnius summit in mid-July, a senior US Defense official told reporters on Tuesday.
“Sweden is ready to join NATO and we’re going to urge our allies who still need to finish that process to get the job done,” the senior defense official added.
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