AFP, Kiev :About 300 US paratroopers arrived this week in Ukraine to train the Ukrainian National Guard which is fighting pro-Russian rebels in the east, the US Army said in a statement.The troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade arrived on Tuesday and Wednesday in Yavoriv, western Ukraine, to spend six months training three battalions of Ukrainian troops, said the statement dated Thursday.The move is likely to anger Russia, which accuses the United States of backing the protests that brought down the pro-Russian president Victor Yanukovych last year, sparking conflict between those loyal to Kiev and Moscow.The West accuses Russia of arming the separatists who have taken control of some areas in eastern Ukraine, a charge that Moscow denies.Fighting between the separatists and Ukrainian troops is rumbling on in the east despite a February ceasefire agreement.The conflict has so far claimed more than 6,000 lives, according to the United Nations.The US troops will train the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU), a reservist force reformed in 2014 to bring volunteers and militia under government control.”We will be conducting classes on war-fighting functions, as well as training to sustain and increase the professionalism and proficiency of military staffs,” Major Jose Mendez, operations officer for the brigade, which is based in Italy, said in the statement.Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of violating its obligations under a peace deal by maintaining an economic blockade on rebellious eastern regions.He said Thursday during a live televised call-in show that Ukraine hasn’t delivered pensions and other social payments to people in the east and has shut financial services to the region.Putin argued that by acting in such way, the Ukrainian leadership is effectively cutting off the eastern regions from the rest of the country. At the same time, the Russian president insisted that he remains committed to cooperating with the Ukrainian president to overcome the crisis, adding that the Minsk agreement signed in February provides the only way out of the crisis.
