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Poland said on Saturday that a maintenance hub for tanks damaged in Ukraine during the conflict with Russia had begun operating in its southern city of Gliwice.
Poland says hub to fix tanks damaged in Ukraine opens | Reuters
"We have the latest air defense systems. They are now of medium range," Cherniev said. He added that testing of the anti-aircraft systems is underway and "quite successful."
According to Cherniev, the "Ukrainian-made and Ukrainian-designed" air defense systems are similar to Hawk anti-aircraft weapons, though not a replacement for longer-range Patriot missiles.
Ukraine has developed its own air defense systems, official says (kyivindependent.com)
A couple of months before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I was lying on a hilltop watching a US mechanised battalion thundering down a valley, tasked with breaching a set of obstacles. The obstacles were less formidable than those in Ukraine, and the enemy in the exercise comprised a single company backed by limited artillery. Nevertheless, the US troops made a mess of things. Their reconnaissance troops failed to screen their vehicles, they went static in sight of the enemy and they were severely punished.
The fact that well-trained US troops struggle to conduct combined-arms obstacle breaching under more favourable circumstances underscores how difficult it is. Moreover, the US troops I was observing may have performed poorly, but they did so in training. If ever they have to do it for real, they will have had repeated opportunities to learn and improve. Ukrainian troops have not had that luxury.
There was a shift to training Ukrainian units after the decision to give Ukraine western tanks and IFVs (infantry fighting vehicles). But despite the requirement being identified in September 2022, the decision to proceed was not taken until January 2023 and has only been partially implemented. Months of delays gave Russian forces time to build their defences, significantly complicating the task for the Ukrainians.
The upshot is that Ukrainian forces had around two months to master a panoply of western systems in varying states of repair, and to take new troops and try to prepare them for some of the hardest tactical tasks that can be demanded of a force.
Another problem is that much of the training provided has been poorly designed. Individual soldiers can be trained in Ukraine. What cannot be easily done there – with Ukraine's training grounds targets for Russian strikes – is unit training above the company. For this reason, collective training has been organised on European training grounds for some Ukrainian units.
However, western forces have a mantra that you should ''train as you fight''. Ukrainian troops have been clear that they have not been able to do this on western training areas. They have not been able to fly their UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) because of regulatory constraints, or use their own fire control software because it is not certified by Nato.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that regulations have been rigid in requiring us to teach Ukrainians how we do business, without there being adequate time to actually deliver all the relevant modules. Instead, courses need to be adapted to best amplify existing Ukrainian strengths. But to do that requires permissions to trainers to be relaxed to adapt what is taught, and a collaborative approach with Ukrainian staff to course design.
These bureaucratic constraints highlight a serious problem for Ukraine's partners. While not actually fighting a war, the future of European security depends upon the outcome of Ukraine's struggle. And yet western capitals continue to be process-driven and slow, applying peacetime approaches to much of their activity.
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