The Army has sent 90 Stryker vehicles from Fort Wainwright to Ukraine to assist the Ukrainian nation in its defense. Fort Wainwright still has couple of Strykers available to help soldiers prepare to defend themselves against attacks with weapon of mass destruction.
The Army transferred 329 Strykers from Fort Wainwright to the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama in the fall of last year, and in January, they sent 90 in Ukraine in the context of the military aid package.
“Those are those that were employed to assist the Ukrainian initiative,” says Ashley John an official with the army’s Ground Combat Systems Program Executive Office in Michigan. John wrote in an email on Monday that the Strykers shipped to Ukraine have been “part part of the U.S. commitment to provide security aid in Ukraine.”
In February in February, it was reported that the U.S. sent about 30 Strykers to Bulgaria in the Balkan country located south of Ukraine.
11th Airborne Division commander Maj. Gen. Brian Eifler says the Stryker transfer to Ukraine was done following the Army made a decision last fall that the vehicles didn’t align with the division’s mandate to focus on the defense of Ukraine’s Arctic as well as training in the region.
“That was a choice made by the Army level to get rid from Strykers and build a force that’s better equipped within the region, as well as learning in the region,” Eifler said in an interview at a press conference earlier this month. He said the multi-wheeled, lightly armored vehicles were no longer suited for the division and its two newly reorganized brigades: a mainly infantry unit based at Fort Wainwright and an airborne unit at Joint Base Elemendorf-Richardson.
However, the Army took the decision to maintain a couple of specially armed Strykers at Alaska.
“Back to September of this year, we disposed of a majority from the Strykers that we owned here at Wainwright. One unit, however, kept a few of the Strykers,” says Eve Baker who is who is a Fort Wainwright spokesperson. She was talking about the 17th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion. The unit specializes in teaching soldiers in how to react to attacks that involve radiological, chemical, biological as well as nuclear weapon.
“So they Stryker vehicles are equipped with radiation detection equipment and protection capabilities and are used Armywide in this kind or unit” the woman said during an interview in the last week.
Baker states that a few of the Strykers as well as their crews participated in the last month’s Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) JPMRC an exercise for training that took place in areas for training around Fort Wainwright.
“So people might see them and get in confusion,” she said, “but we did dispose ourselves from the vast majority of Stryker vehicle fleet.”
In the meantime, Army officials are trying to figure out how to do with the other Strykers.
“The Army is still considering different options for what they will deal with the particular Strykers that were retrieved from Alaska,” says Gen.Charles Flynn, the commander of the army’s Pacific Command. Both the general and Eifler spoke about Strykers as well as the JPMRC exercise at a March 30 news conference held at Fort Wainwright.
“Obviously they’ll need to be improved,” Flynn said, “but there’s a broad range of possibilities that is what the Headquarters Department of the Army is pursuing.”
Army officials claim that they believe that the Stryker is a flexible platform that can accommodate 18 different variations that include vehicles fitted with armaments such as mortars and cannons. There are also other options to transport troops and supplies, and remove minefields. Flynn said the Army is modernized some Strykers to accommodate short-range air-defense and intelligence-collection systems.
