US starts training Ukraine forces to fight pro-Russian militants

YAVORIV: -US paratroopers launched a training mission Monday for Ukrainian government forces who will fight pro-Russian separatists in the east, angering Moscow as the deadly conflict rumbles on.

President Petro Poroshenko welcomed troops from the US 173rd Airborne Brigade for Operation Fearless Guardian in a rain-soaked ceremony at a military base in Yavoriv, western Ukraine.

"We are the eyewitnesses and direct participants in forming the new Ukrainian military, which like the phoenix is returning after a long time," Poroshenko told the assembled troops.

Officials said some 300 US troops will train 900 members of Ukraine´s National Guard, which is deployed in the east where heavy arms fire continues despite a February ceasefire.

US Army Major Michael Weisman told AFP the US mission would provide training in individual and medical skills and defence manoeuvres, with the kind of weapons already in use by the Ukrainian forces such as AK-47 assault rifles.

As the US troops arrived in Ukraine last week, Russia warned the move could "destabilise" the ex-Soviet country, where the conflict has killed more than 6,000 people in the past year.

The United States is one of Ukraine´s biggest backers in a conflict that has dragged relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Poroshenko called the exercises the first of their kind and "one of the biggest and most important demonstrations of solidarity" between his pro-Western government and its US allies.

"The circumstances under which these exercises are being held are also unique," he added, referring to the conflict in the east.

Washington has sent $75 million (70 million euros) worth of non-lethal military aid to Kiev, but has so far held off from supplying weapons.

"We are not providing weapons," Weisman told AFP. "What we are merely doing is getting them better with theirs."

Kiev and the West have cited growing evidence that Russia is arming separatists who control parts of eastern Ukraine and sending troops to fight alongside them, but Russia has repeatedly denied this.

Moscow accuses the United States of backing the uprising that preceded the ousting of former pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych in February last year. Moscow subsequently annexed the Crimean peninsula.