This is how many troops the U.S. trained for Ukraine's offensive

Western-trained soldiers have been the tip of Ukraine’s spear in the embattled country’s most recent counter-offensive against Russian forces in the occupied territories and we now have a better idea of just how many of Kyiv’s new troops were trained by the West. 

While speaking at a press conference after a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, U.S. Chief of the General Staff General Mark Milley gave exact figures on how many Ukrainian troops were trained by the U.S. in the lead-up to Ukraine’s offensive. 

“Collectively, the coalition has trained 17 brigade combat teams for this offensive and more than 63,000 troops,” General Milley said in a press conference after the meeting, “the United States alone has trained 15,000 of those, with more training ongoing.”

“Training has included individual non-commissioned officers and officers and staff training, along with artillery, air defense artillery, engineers, logistics, medical, and of course, putting it all together in combined arms maneuver at night,” Milley added. 

The training helped Ukrainian troops develop the skills they were going to need to push the Russian military out of the occupied territories and Milley noted that the skills the soldiers learned from Western trainers were providing “a measurable impact on the battlefield.” 

It's interesting to see how Milley views the impact Western training has had on Ukraine's soldiers and even more interesting to finally understand the scope and scale of Western programs to help get Kyiv’s military ready for the daunting task it had ahead of itself. 

General Milley spoke quite sternly about the progression of the counter-offensive, noting it was proceeding at a slow pace but that it was expected given the challenges Ukraine faced in needing to first eliminate the Russian defenses that were built up over months. 

“First of all, the Russians have had several months to put in a very complex defense in depth, the linear defense in depth,” the U.S. Chief of the General Staff explained at the press conference.

General Milley added that the Russians didn’t quite have a connected trench line of defense like the First World War but added that what they had built was similar, noting it consisted of lots of minefields, dragon's teeth, barbed wire, and trenches.

“They've got a very extensive security zone in depth, and then they've got at least two, perhaps even three main defensive belts,” the U.S. Chief of the General Staff said. 

While the Russians did have time to prepare, General Milley noted they also had a lot of things working against them—the least of which being the high number of casualties the Russian military had suffered in the months leading up to Ukraine’s counter-offensive.  

Mobilization filled Russian ranks with poorly trained and poorly equipped soldiers and it also devastated morale in combination with heavy losses and the recent armed mutiny by Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. Logistics were also a major issue, too. 

General Milley specifically pointed out that the Russians had suffered significant losses among its officer corps both from fighting and from those who were removed from power because of Prigozhin’s coup. All of this was working in Ukraine’s favor at the moment. 

Interestingly, General Milley also noted Ukrainian forces weren’t focused on assaulting but were working to slowly work their way through Russia’s extensive minefields while conserving their combat power, presumably for a big push when a weakness was found. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also chimed in on the progress of Kyiv’s offensive and told reports he agreed with General Milley’s assessment but said the key message was that Kyiv had not squandered its combat power and was slowly getting stronger. 

“We continue to generate combat power. We're training three—training and equipping three brigades in Germany right now and there's other training ongoing around the region,” Austin explained, so maybe we will see major progress in Ukraine soon.