Marine Corps could expand training mission in Ukraine

Marine leaders are considering expanding the Corps' mission in Ukraine by training local troops who could be tasked with taking on Russian-backed separatists.The Marine Corps could expand its training of Ukrainian forces as leaders following a summer exercise in which Marines schooled that nation’s army in skills they could take to the fight.

Marines could deploy to the Eastern European country to train the Ukrainian naval infantry, said Capt. Richard Ulsh, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa. Marine officials have future hopes to begin training the Ukrainian Naval Infantry – that nation’s version of the U.S. Marine Corps, Ulsh said.

It also follows an recent 11-day exercise the Marine Corps concluded in Ukraine in late July. About 56 Marines from Minnesota-based 4th Law Enforcement Battalion participated in Exercise Saber Guardian, a multinational exercise. 

Saber Guardian involved aAbout 1,800 military personnel from the U.S. and several European partners participated in Saber Guardian. The exercise was held at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center outside near Yavoriv in western Ukraine, near Poland — far from front-line fighting in Crimea. 

State Department officials said if more U.S. troops head to Ukraine to train members of its military, they also will also be far from the front lines. 

Marine officials said the training during Saber Guardian was focused on nonlethal tactics rather than y the training was not focused on direct combat skills, but a Washington think tanker says it could still help them fight Russian-backed separatists. There was a "small group of Marines there providing non-lethals training - that's the bulk of it," said Capt. Richard Ulsh, a Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa spokesman.

"One interesting point is the [U.S. military] is always quick to stress that training is far from the front and non-lethal," Coffey said. "The U.S. always says this as a way to not raise tensions with Russia," Luke Coffey, a former Army captain who’s now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said. They said the same thing about Georgia – ‘We’re training Georgia in counter-insurgency to go to Afghanistan, not to get ready to fight with Russia.’"All this sounds nice and plays well, but the reality is the training can be applied to Russian separatists in Ukraine, even if it is not directly focused on those issues."

While details are scant about what training Marines might offer Ukrainian naval infantrymen, that raises the possibility of training in other facets of military operations that could hone skills Ukrainian forces are more likely to employ in lethal combat.But even nonlethal training will prove useful on the chaotic front near the Crimean peninsula,  battlefield of eastern Ukraine, where fighters are mixed with civilian populations, requiring training and gear to employ everything from light non-lethal to unbridled lethal tactics.

The need for nonlethal tactics and equipment on complex battlefields is a point Marine leaders emphasized It is a point that was made by Marine leaders during a Sept. 22 panel discussion during the at Modern Day Marine expo in aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. There, Lt. Gen. Ronald Bailey, deputy commandant for Plans, Policies and Operations, used a photo from Ukraine, depicting what appear to be uniformed Russian troops standing in formation with men in jeans and sneakers, toting AK-47s, to illustrate the types of hybrid threats that are becoming increasingly common.

Marines are likely to find themselves in that sort of a fight in the future where on a single urban battlefield they face a fusion of tactics and military weaponry from insurgents and conventional military forces including an Iraq-style insurgency and nation-state military capabilities.

"Basically what the Ukrainian military is fighting is an insurgency. The location, culture and language are different than in Afghanistan or western Iraq, but nevertheless it is an insurgency, so Marines have a lot to offer," he said. "The Marines have a decade of COIN experience from Anbar and Helmand," he said, referring to provinces in Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively.