In an interview in Warsaw, Mark Milley said he witnessed at one of the NATO bases how US forces provide essential support to combat units in Ukraine. The base is home to a technical guard of nearly 50 people who remotely maintain multi-billion dollar weapons provided by the US military via secure phone trading.
Some members of the roughly 50-strong repair team also provided reporters with photos of weapons that the US had sent but were damaged on the battlefield, including M777 rifles. Members of the technical team also said that the weapons they repair with their help could have been disposed of long ago in the West, but they are not ready to do so in Ukraine.
They refuse to get rid of it
– said a soldier, recalling a photo of an artillery battery full of shrapnel, because of which Ukrainian technicians called for help. According to the news, the battery in question was completely exhausted in artillery clashes against Russian forces.
However, in many cases, the Ukrainians managed to bring these weapons into combat readiness, thanks to the guidance of the team of technicians working at the Polish base, as well as the knowledge and perseverance of technicians in Kyiv.
Since the beginning of the program in June, more than a dozen conference channels with more than 100 Ukrainian contacts have been created. These channels mainly support M777s and HIMARS, which have become the backbone of the Ukrainian army in recent months. The channels allow the Ukrainians to recycle worn out American batteries or use them as spare parts.
The fighting power of Ukraine remains at the current level because America has also invested in its maintenance
said the soldier.
Cover image source: Getty Images
