U.S. to move ahead with training Ukrainian guardsmen - Pentagon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 290 U.S. Army paratroopers will travel to western Ukraine next month to train three battalions of Ukrainian national guard troops, the Pentagon said on Thursday, moving ahead with a long-planned mission that was delayed due to a peace deal.

Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said 290 members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade based at Vicenza, Italy, would carry out the training at the Yavoriv training centre in western Ukraine, probably sometime in late April.