Military training efforts for Ukraine hit milestones
Battle cries pierce the smoke and rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire as Ukrainian soldiers fight through and take enemy trenches and dugouts that hide gruesome, bloody remains.
“Grenade!” one screams in Ukrainian. Another yells: “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
This time, no lives or limbs were lost. Because this time, the rounds fired were blanks and the “enemy” troops were, in fact, French soldiers whose intention was not to kill the Ukrainians but instead to help shape them into better, more lethal warriors.
But soon, the war games those troops played in the mud in France will become all too real, when the Ukrainians return home and are sent to the front lines against Russia’s forces.
As the Russian invasion grinds into a second winter and casualties — estimated in the hundreds of thousands — continue to mount on both sides, combat training programs provided by Ukraine’s allies are helping it hold out and its odds of eventual victory. By continuing to prepare Ukrainian troops for battle even as the Israel-Hamas war diverts global attention, Ukraine’s backers also are making concrete their promises to stick with it for the long haul.
France is on course to have trained 7,000 Ukrainians this year — some in Poland, others at French bases — as part of a European Union military assistance mission for Ukraine that launched a year ago this week. The French army granted The Associated Press access to a training base in rural France last week to observe the latest class of Ukrainian infantrymen being put through its paces at the tail end of a four-week course.
The EU mission’s initial goal was to train 15,000 soldiers, but it has far exceeded that target and now expects to hit 35,000 by the end of this year. All but three of the EU’s 27 member countries, plus non-member Norway, have provided training courses or instructors, the EU Commission says.
The U.S. has trained about 18,000, mostly in Germany, with an additional 1,000 in the pipeline, the Pentagon said.
In Britain, 30,000 have learned soldiering in the past 17 months, a training program the U.K. government says is unprecedented since World War II.
As well as basic training with weapons, battlefield first aid and other skills, instructors are also imparting specialized military know-how, ranging from clearing mines and launching waterborne attacks aboard small boats to equipment repair, officer training and even help for military chaplains.
With their return to Ukraine just days away, the grimness of the future that awaits the trainees at the French base was perceptible in the men’s unsmiling looks. Civilians not long ago, they carried themselves like soldiers. They addressed each other with nicknames, and there was swearing as the men caught their breaths after storming trenches with fake grenades and blank rounds.
French instructors left animal remains in the dugouts and ditches to harden the troops to battlefield bloodshed. Only the officers had previous front-line experience, the chief French training officer said.
He said Ukraine is looking to France for tactics and know-how that could help its forces bust through Russian defenses. Because of French military concerns for the base’s security, the officer, Lt. Col. Even, could only be identified by his rank and first name.
“One can clearly see in Ukraine that the front line is relatively frozen, with two belligerents who employ very similar doctrines,” he said. “So, today, one of the keys being sought in an attempt to break this inertia is to try to develop maneuvering schemes that can bother and even shake up the adversary.”
As well as seeing their assault on freshly dug trenches, the AP also observed Ukrainians vigorously defending a mock-up village against a French “enemy” attack and concealing themselves in rain-drenched woodlands. Translators bridged the language gap between the soldiers and their French hosts.