The Ukrainian military has made approximately 20 aircraft operable using parts from other countries, according to a senior U.S. defense official.
“They have more than 20 additional aircraft available to them than they did three weeks ago,” the official told reporters on Wednesday. “And that is because of the shipment and arrival of spare parts that have been able to get some of their inoperable aircraft, fixed-wing fighter aircraft, in operable condition.”
In addition to the aircraft, more than 50 Ukrainian soldiers are being trained outside of the country on how to use the howitzers that the United States is providing to them. Those soldiers will then return home and be able to train their colleagues on how to use the weapon.
“The training of some small number of Ukrainians on the howitzers has begun,” the official explained. “It has begun in the country outside Ukraine. I am not going to tell you — be able to detail where this is happening, but it has happened. And we expect the training to last for about a week. And this is training the trainers. It’s a smallish number of Ukrainians, a little bit more than 50.”
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President Joe Biden’s most recent military aid package sent to Ukraine included 40,000 rounds of ammunition, and the howitzer rounds, which are a type of artillery ammunition, have arrived and will continue to do so.
Russian forces, which have since given up on capturing the capital of Kyiv, have recently focused their attention on the Donbas region, and they have sought to reinforce their troops in the area. Their reinforcements come in the way of four additional battalion tactical groups, or BTGs, which bring the total number of BTGs in the area to roughly 80, the official explained, and each one consists of roughly 800 to 1,000 service members.
Russia is also coordinating its attacks on the strategic port city of Mariupol, which is located between the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and the Donbas region, which is in the east and is heavily populated with pro-Russian separatists. Capturing the city, which the Russians have pulverized, would allow for them to have a land corridor from the Crimean Peninsula to the Donbas region.
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Three of the four new BTGs were sent to the Donbas region, the official added.
