According to the combat training plan approved by the Defense Minister of Azerbaijan, various exercises on driving and fire training were accomplished with the Azerbaijan Army's tank crews on the combined-arms ranges, the Ministry of Defense told AZERTAC
and that is going to be the critical thing. the training for a weapons system like that needs to occur way in advance of delivery. and they re moving in that direction. but they really haven t done enough of the training for flight crews to prepare them for something like the f-16. the tank crews also, they re getting the abrams and leopard tanks. those need training as well, so it s going to take a while for the weapons systems not only to get to ukraine but to be employed by highly trained effective crews, and that will make a difference. unfortunately, the clock is more on the russian side than it is on the ukrainian side at this juncture. and senator lindsey graham called for f-16 pilot training to begin for ukrainian fighters even though no one has committed jets to ukraine, would that be a good use of resources right now? well, it depends. we would have to have a plan in place to actually give them
stoltenberg as he gathers with his counterparts from nato for a meeting in brussels. at this hour the ukraine defense contact group meeting, these are live pictures for you, the u.s. secretary of defense there at the center of that image. nic robertson is following those doechts for us from warsaw with the latest. reporter: we re expecting the polish defense minister to be there. they have had a hawkish line pushing the nato allies and partners to provide leopard 2 tanks. of course that is now in process. training here in poland began about a week ago, they are accelerating the training for 105 ukrainian soldiers, 21 different tank crews are being trained on the leopard 2s. and the defense minister outlining a proposal that he will be announcing here today. there are of course a number of
translator: too soon to say what s best about the leopard 2, ukraine s tank trainer says. but the machine is good quality what is most important, my soldiers like it a lot. reporter: their training fast tracked, 12 hours a da, six days a week. compared to the polish standard, eight hours a day, five days a week. polish instructors say the ukrainians will be ready in a month. most of them have some tank skills already. the polish brigadier in charge says. they re so keen to learn, we have to hold them back. and peacetime is rare, if ever, the tank crews are racing through their training like this. it s a sign of how much they re needed at the front lines. they re being accelerated through their leopard 2 apprenticeship. poland s president who has been at the vanguard of pushing nato allies to give ukraine modern
modernized nato-compatible ukrainian army being laid. so, what we were watching there were 21 different tank crews getting trained. now, we know the germans have started training tank crews as well. the commander there said it s going to take about a month to get the crews ready. but president zelenskyy wants about 300 or 400 tanks. so the stinger in the tail of all of this the training is done and it s going to be a year or certainly the end of the year before he gets enough tank crews ready to use the tanks. that gets to the issue that general miley and lloyd austin are concerned about integrating and getting ready for the ukrainians in a timely manner. interesting. thank you. a terrifying moment on a united flight after it plunged towards the ocean getting as low as just 775 feet from the water. all of those frightening details