Ukraine kicks off joint military exercise with U.S.

The Ukrainian-American command post exercises code-named "Fearless Guardian-2015" kicked off in the western Ukrainian region of Lvov on Monday, the country's Defense Ministry said.

The six-month drills will be held at the Yavoriv military facility and will involve servicemen from Ukraine volunteer battalions and U.S. troops, the ministry's press service said in a statement.

According to Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko, during the drills, the U.S. brigade of some 300 paratroopers would conduct a series of trainings for 900 Ukrainian servicemen to enhance their medical and defense skills.X Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who attended the opening ceremony of the drills, said that the exercises are conducted amid an armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, where government troops which have been fighting pro-independence insurgents over the past year.

"In such circumstances a strategic partnership between Ukraine and the United States acquires new meanings and quantitative parameters," Poroshenko was quoted by his press office as saying.

The Yavoriv military facility is near the Polish border and nearly 1,000 km away from the combat area in eastern part of the country.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine, which started in April 2014, has killed over 6,100 people and wounded more than 15,400 others, according to the latest United Nations estimates.

The move to deploy U.S. military instructors in Ukraine has irked the Kremlin, which warned that the U.S. military presence could further destabilize the country. Endi