The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Civilians to be soldiers
combat tasks and it will give us more strength and resilience on the battlefield.”
Corporal Shaun Carter of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment, normally based in Woolwich, said of the exercises: “We try to make it as realistic as possible, as close to what they will be up against in Ukraine.
“We call it ‘train hard, fight easy’. We have trained 10,000 last year, we want to do another 20,000 this year. They are extremely motivated.
“When they turn up they are civilians and in a short number of weeks they have gone from civilian to soldier.”
Other recruits were undergoing training on urban warfare and learning from Swedish soldiers how to clear buildings.
Instructor Rasmus, a
Swedish army captain who preferred not to give his surname, said the Ukrainians were highly motivated.
“It is hard work being a soldier,” he said.
“They are tired but keep going with a good spirit.”
The training boost came as Russia again pummelled Ukraine with a barrage of cruise and other missiles yesterday, hitting targets from east to west.
Ukrainian authorities said one of the strikes killed a 79-year-old woman and injured at least seven other people.
Ukrainian authorities said targets in the north, west, south, east and centre of the country were struck.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said Russian forces “changed their tactics” for the strike, deploying what he described as “active reconnaissance” and “false targets”.
Russian troops had launched balloons with corner reflectors to deceive Ukraine’s air defence as part of an effort to retake some battlefield advantage after months of setbacks, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, said.
“This indicates that (the Russians) are preparing and not sleeping,” Mr Danilov said on Ukrainian TV, “and they are starting to use other methods.”
Russian forces may be seeking ways to get past Ukrainian air defences that have been strengthened by Western-supplied weapons systems and have had high rates of success against previous Russian barrages of missiles.