BRUSSELS — Ukraine’s military contingents may soon join NATO training mission in Iraq, as well as the alliance’s activities on ensuring security in the Mediterranean Sea, according to Lieutenant General Anatoliy Petrenko, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister for European integration.
“As of now, a major effort has been made in Ukraine,” the official told journalists on June 27 on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) meetings at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
“We have completed drafting documents that will enable us to join NATO mission in Iraq — and that’s our specialists with actual combat experience — and also to join NATO’s maritime operation Sea Guardian (in the Mediterranean Sea). Primarily, from the point of view of situation awareness in the Black and the Azov sea.”
General Petrenko, being ahead of the Ukrainian delegation to the NAC’s June 26-27 convent, said he had already discussed the mentioned issues with NATO partners.
According to NATO, the 29-nation security bloc currently runs a non-combat training and capacity-building mission in Iraq since July 2018, at the request of the Iraqi government and in coordination with the United States-led global coalition fighting the Islamic State terror group.
The mission involves “several hundred” instructors focused on areas such as countering improvised explosive devices (IEDs), civil-military planning, armored vehicles, maintenance, and military medicine. As NATO explains, the mission is also “helping Iraqi instructors to build more sustainable, transparent and inclusive national security structures and institutions to strengthen Iraqi military institutions.”
At the same time, NATO also sustains a maritime mission titled Sea Guardian since October 2016.
The alliance’s special maritime endeavor in the Mediterranean following 9/11 attacks in 2001, with the goal of upholding freedom of navigation, conducting interdiction tasks, and protecting critical infrastructure.
“More generally speaking, it is helping to maintain a secure and safe maritime environment,” according to official NATO guide.
Apart from that, Ukraine’s role in other NATO operations it is currently involved in, such as KFOR mission in Kosovo and Operation Resolute Support in Afghanistan, will be enhanced, as General Petrenko said.
“Ukraine supports and considerably involved in activities of NATO Operation Resolute Support (in Afghanistan), the official said.
“By the end of the year, we with our Lithuanian, American, and Italian partners, will fill up all posts currently reserved for us in the mission’s structure. Our contingent in Kosovo will continue fulfilling tasks, and we’re even enhancing with both technical capabilities and personnel.”
Ukraine’s participates in NATO-led KFOR force in Kosovo since 1999, currently deploying nearly 40 personnel, mostly military engineers, in the embattled Balkan country.
As part of NATO’s Resolute Support mission, 10 Ukrainian troops are also deployed to Afghanistan, mostly dealing with explosive objects clearance.
