BREAKING NEWS: US military to train Ukrainians on Patriot missile system

The United States Department of Defence has concluded plans to bring Ukrainian troops to Oklahoma to train them on the Patriot missile defence systems starting as soon as next week.

According to The Hill, the Pentagon said the training will hold at Fort Sill, Defense Department press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said.

“(The US military) will prepare approximately 90 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers to operate, maintain, and sustain the defensive system over a training course expected to last several months,” Ryder said.

He said the Patriot will “contribute to Ukraine’s air defence capabilities and provide another capability to the Ukrainian people to defend themselves against Russia’s ongoing aerial assaults.”  

Fort Sill — one of the Army’s four basic training locations, located 90 miles southwest of Oklahoma City — already teaches troops the operation and maintenance of the Patriot system and is also the location of the Army’s field artillery school.

Patriot training typically takes up to a year, but Ryder said the Pentagon is looking at how it can speed up the timeline for the Ukrainian forces.

“We recognise…that the longer those troops are off the line, they’re not actually engaged in combat, and so [we’re] trying to work with the Ukrainians to see what we can do to accelerate the training timeline,” he said.

He added that training will involve classroom instruction, training on the Patriot systems themselves, and working in a simulation lab before Kyiv can use the system on the battlefield.

Prior to revealing the training plan, defence officials had said they expect that instructing Ukrainians on how to use the advanced air defence system will take “several months,” Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, told reporters last week. 

“We will start training for Patriot later this month,” Cooper said at a Jan. 6 Pentagon briefing. “I’m not going to be able to give you a specific time frame for the completion of training. It will take several months. So, again, Patriot is not an immediate-term capability. But we will start that training very soon.” 

And Ryder on January 5 told reporters the Defense Department was exploring a variety of options on where to hold Patriot training “to include potential training here in the US, overseas, or a combination of both.”