Oklahoma Army National Guard Helps Ukrainian Soldiers Become a Lethal Fighting Force
BY STAFF WRITER Matthew Liptak
The recent deployment of the 1st Battalion, 279th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT), Oklahoma Army National Guard, was a little like a plot from the popular HBO series “Game of Thrones”: ample amounts of fire and ice. There was fire – not dragon fire, but instead brave Oklahoma Soldiers saving Ukrainians from an apartment fire. And there was ice – not from the dreaded White Walker characters that have gained huge notoriety on the show, but from an epic spontaneous snowball fight that helped forge a bond between the members of two armies.
Ironically, neither of these two unexpected events was a part of the 45th IBCT’s main mission in Ukraine.
The U.S. Soldiers were there to train Ukrainian soldiers in combat defense. The 45th was deployed to Western Ukraine as part of Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine (JMTG-U). The goal of JMTG-U, which falls under the 7th Army Training Command and U.S. Army Europe, is to help build the Ukrainian military into a modern and capable fighting force that can bring – and sustain – stability in the region.
The 11-month Oklahoma Army National Guard deployment was made up of two rotations. The first rotation was manned by Soldiers from the 179th Infantry Regiment, and took place between January and June of 2017. The second rotation sent the Soldiers of the 279th Infantry Regiment between June and November of 2017. All totaled, the mission included 500 Oklahoma Army National Guard Soldiers – with 250 Soldiers in each rotation.
Slated to run through 2020, JMTG-U is a U.S.-led partnership between the United States, Ukraine, Canada, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark and the United Kingdom. The active duty Soldiers of the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd IBCT based out of Fort Stewart, Ga., preceded the Oklahoma Army National Guard in support of the mission. They helped start development of the then-new Yavoriv Combat Training Center (CTC).
