WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US Army Europe Commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges announced Tuesday that training of three battalions of the Ukrainian army by US instructors had been delayed, Bloomberg reported.
Speaking at Defense Writers Group breakfast, Hodges said the training, originally scheduled to begin next week, had been delayed "to give more time for Minsk agreement implementation."
The announcement was made amid fulfillment of a truce between Kiev forces and Donbas pro-independence militias signed in Minsk, Belarus. Under the peace plan, the sides ceased fire a month ago and pulled heavy weaponry away from the line of contact.
Washington has been providing Kiev with non-lethal military support since the beginning of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine in April 2014. The US Congress authorized President Obama to supply Kiev with weapons, but he remains publicly reluctant to do so.
