SOF training to be held as scheduled; General Staff's attempt to reschedule failed

Training of the Special Operation Forces (SOF) under the NATO program were at the brink of failure; it took a scandal in media and social networks to prevent the sabotage.

Petro Poroshenko Bloc MP Iryna Friz announced on her Facebook page that the training starts on Monday, Censor.NET reports.

She said she had been informed by NATO and SOCOM representatives that despite all the obstacles, NATO SOF training for Ukraine will take place at Khmelnytskyi training ground starting starting from Monday, as planned.

"I hope that accountability for making decisions that hurt Ukraine's image will find its 'hero'," Friz said.

Censor.NET 's Chief Editor Yurii Butusov commented her message in his Facebook:

"General Staff failed to disrupt SOF training and shift it to Yavoriv. Due to public attention, the training will start as planned, in Khmelnytskyi on Monday, with only one week delay from the schedule. This is very good. In order to overcome the reluctance of the General Staff, it took not only my articles at Censor.NET and social media posts, but also personal involvement of MP Iryna Friz, adviser to president, who took obligation to talk to the Americans and to bring the issue to the highest level of the state leadership, who were made aware of the information," he wrote.

"Now the 8th and the 140th will not be folded in dirt far away from home for many months, but they will be effectively operating at their base; General Pavlo Tkachuk will not be able to siphon off the U.S. money for military ration - the U.S. provided for 540 UAH ($22) per day for one Ukrainian soldier's meals.

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"Today NATO representatives together with those of the U.S. SOCOM met with Ukrainian representatives - the issue has been resolved. Now you can see how secret programs on cooperation with NATO and SOF are implemented here - through Facebook, no other way. NATO representatives air their grievance over an attempt to dismiss Colonel Serhii Kryvonos from position of the head of the Special Operations Directorate of the General Staff. However, they would not interfere in this sad situation - this is our internal Ukrainian task…," the journalist stressed.

"The culprit is known, by the way, but Petro Oleksiiovych [Poroshenko - ed.] will not give up Muzhenko, although the General Staff has once again stultified the president. Note that the General Staff's cowboys, hired with the state funds, have massively attempted to discredit my criticism of the General Staff, but then shut up and do not dare to give mouth against Iryna Friz. Well, I am glad I could be part of another struggle with the fools and forced them to make the decision we needed for our defense capability," Butusov noted.

As reported by Censor.NET earlier, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces sabotaged cooperation with NATO on creation of Special Forces of Ukraine. The General Staff attempted to disprove the information later, but Poroshenko Bloc MP Iryna Friz exposed their lies: "You'd better not respond to media but start Special Operations Forces drills in due time."

MP Friz announced today that the training of the Special Ops will start on Monday despite the attempts to prevent this.