Amid fears of a wider conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Army still plans to conduct an exercise in Ukraine this July, a spokesman for U.S. European Command told Army Times.

Exercise Rapid Trident 2014 is expected to take place near L’viv, Ukraine and will involve units from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Canada, Georgia, Germany, Moldova, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom and Ukraine, said Lt. Col. David Westover Jr.

Planning for the exercise is scheduled for May.

Notably, the exercise will focus on training for peacekeeping, not repelling an enemy invader.

“As of today, the plan is to train a U.S.-Ukrainian combined battalion headquarters in a Field Training Exercise with a peace support operations scenario,” Westover said in an email Friday to Army Times. “Exercise planning will continue until we are told otherwise.”

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Newport News Shipbuilding on Tuesday was awarded an additional $1.3 billion by the Navy to continue work on the carrier John F. Kennedy, which is scheduled to join the fleet by 2022.

The contract modification will help the shipyard, a unit of Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc., continue the early stages of construction. The JFK will be the second in the Ford-class of carriers. The Gerald R. Ford, also under construction at the shipyard, is due to be delivered to the Navy in early 2016.

The Ford's estimated total price is nearly $13 billion. The JFK is expected to cost at least $11.3 billion.

Huntington Ingalls said in a news release that the latest contract award will enable the shipyard to, among other things, purchase the majority of the remaining material for the JFK, including valves and pumps. It started work on the carrier in 2009.

Four restaurants, including three McDonald’s outlets, will close within the next three weeks on Navy installations, according to Navy Exchange Service Command officials.

And two other contractors — a name-brand sandwich eatery and a name-brand pizza parlor — have asked to be released from their Army and Air Force Exchange Service contracts to operate fast food restaurants at two other installations, according to AAFES officials.

A source with knowledge of military on-base resale operations said the issue likely has to do with two new government regulations — one implemented, one pending — that will affect wages for contract workers in such on-base concessions.

These closings “are the tip of the iceberg,” the source said. “I don’t think anybody has realized what the far-reaching effects of this will be.”

McDonald’s restaurants will close at Naval Weapons Station Charleston, S.C., on March 16; at Naval Support Activity, Bethesda, Md., on March 21; and at Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton, Wash., on March 31, said Kathleen Martin, a NEXCOM spokeswoman.

Another eatery, I Love Country, has notified NEXCOM that it will close its restaurant at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on April 4, Martin said.

Martin said the McDonald’s outlets “came to the end of their contract term. We were in the process of renegotiating and McDonald’s made the unilateral decision to close those three” outlets. She referred questions about the reasons for the closures to McDonald’s.

Lisa McComb, a company spokeswoman, said McDonald’s, along with the independent owner/operators of the individual restaurants, are closing the three eateries “due to the fact that we have lost our lease.”

McDonald’s independent owners operate about 30 restaurants on military installations. “Whenever we reach the end of a term, whether on a military site or otherwise, we consider many factors in deciding whether to renegotiate a new term,” McComb said.