Ukrainian soldiers are not receiving enough training on advanced weapons and equipment donated by Western allies to counter Russia, according to a military observer.
CNN’s Jim Sciutto, tracking developments in the ongoing conflict, said Kyiv’s forces only get “weeks of training” on weapon systems that usually take months to master.
The war-torn nation is reportedly expediting a necessary process to quickly send soldiers to the frontline and push back Russian forces.
“Ukrainians have been supplied with highly advanced US Bradley fighting vehicles, for instance, armored personnel carriers, and German Leopard tanks,” he said during a recent broadcast of The Lead.
“But what I’ve been told is, the training on those systems has been quite short, eight weeks on some of these systems.”
Cutting short the training on such weapons could make Kyiv’s attempt to form large, well-prepared mechanized fighting units almost impossible, Sciutto added.
In new reporting, CNN’s @jimsciutto has learned Western officials are getting increasingly “sobering” assessments about Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russia pic.twitter.com/pOyYv6aDA5
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 8, 2023
Blamed for Slow Counteroffensive Progress
In June, the Ukrainian military launched its much-anticipated counteroffensive to recapture territories seized by Russia.
However, reports of its slow progress began surfacing despite Western nations’ sophisticated weapon systems to counter invading forces.
Sciutto claims that the counteroffensive is less effective than expected, but it is not because of a lack of equipment.
Director of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses Michael Kofman previously said that the Ukrainian military is “very uneven,” with some members having a lot of training while others have very little.
‘A Wake-Up Call’
Amid reports of slow progress, the Atlantic Council has called on the West to increase its support for Ukraine’s military efforts.
The delays in delivering military aid have reportedly resulted in many Ukrainian casualties.
“If Ukraine had received modern battle tanks, long-range missiles, fighter jets, and Patriot missile defense systems during the early months of the fighting, the dynamics of the war would have been markedly different,” the American think tank stated in its report.
