by Our Foreign Desk

UKRAINE and the US risked further provoking Russia yesterday as their troops kicked off joint training exercises dubbed Fearless Guardian 2015.

The exercises were touted as a way of helping Kiev to bolster its defences against advances by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.

President Petro Poroshenko told an inauguration ceremony at a military base in the western region of Lvov that the country’s armed forces needed to be rebuilt from scratch to deter foreign threats.

The exercises were small-scale, involving just 300 US paratroopers and 900 Ukrainian national guardsmen.

“The majority of the participants here from the Ukrainian side have endured difficult trials on the front,” said Mr Poroshenko.

Fighting has ebbed substantially since the signing of a February ceasefire, but sporadic clashes still break out along the front betwen government and rebel forces.

The truce deal includes provisions for all “armed formations” to be pulled out of the country.

While Kiev interprets that as being aimed at the Russian forces that Moscow denies are in Ukraine, the Kremlin has argued that Washington is implicitly violating the ceasefire deal by stationing its military trainers in the country.

Training for Ukrainian troops is part of a broader package of aid from the US.

President Barack Obama’s administration has said that it will provide Ukraine’s military with $75 million (£50m) in non-lethal aid but has refrained so far from offering lethal equipment, despite calls from Congress to do so.