Training Ukraine's volunteer army 🇺🇦

It is necessary to end this war as soon as possible and finally free our Ukraine from the enemy. I didn't think that I would become a soldier. I had other plans for life. But it happened like that. Since the UK-led training to the Armed Forces of Ukraine started in June 2022, over 10,000 soldiers have been trained and redeployed back to Ukraine. I’ve been nine years in the air force, but this is by far the most important thing I’ve ever done. We run a five-week basic combat course. That is every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for that period. The focus of the course is to give the volunteers to the Armed Forces of Ukraine the skills and principles to survive, fight and win. Before the full-scale war, I worked as a bartender. I knew this would happen to me. I was waiting for it. I was ready for this, to go and defend my country. I am a pediatrician, a pediatric surgeon, and I had to work with children who came from the occupied regions. To tell the truth, what they conveyed, the emotional background they had, is something terrible. And this horror must be fought somehow. Ok, we’re going to start the demonstration with a small recap how to enter the building and afterwards we’re going to show you some new things. A significant amount of the course is spent in the urban training facility. Urban is a complex environment with its own specific challenges so it’s really important that we train the trainees how to cope and operate in those environments. Until now it’s going well. It’s a lot of information for those guys. We have a short time to practise it so we have to tell them a lot of things and practise it a lot, a lot, a lot. Again, again and again. So the first man goes in. The second man moves immediately behind him. The door is closed on the left. They have to try to make it similar as we do in every urban terrain. So you have to put a lot of different buildings to make this as realistic as possible. We have training teams from Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland as well as the UK and the Ukrainian national support element. Across the whole operation there’s then Canadian, Australian and New Zealand training teams involved as well. So very multinational. It demonstrates the shared values that nations in NATO and NATO partners have, both in the support to Ukraine and just working together. Those relationships are built on years of working and operating together in other operational environments. Lay down from my left and fill up each lane and find your target and then we will begin shortly. We are training basic marksmanship. The goal here is to have good groupings and to make sure that they use their sights correctly as well. The small arms training is an incredibly important part of the course. Teaching the trainees the confidence and skills to handle a weapon safely but also in a lethal manner to ensure that they can provide the best support to their units when they go back and are integrated into them. It’s all about teaching them how to be as efficient as possible with their weapon, but also how to survive as long as possible. Every night you go to bed and you think ‘Ok, did I do good today? Was there anything I could have done different?’ It’s an honour to be a part of their education and to see the progress they have. There’s no place I would rather be right now. The training is going very well. Everything is new for me. That's why I try to study like my brothers. The atmosphere here is very good. We try to listen to our instructors. We have made very good progress, so we will return to Ukraine prepared to defend it. As well as focusing on the relevance of the course, we also focus on the realism and immersing the trainees in those realistic battlefield scenarios to help them to understand the effects that has on them mentally and indeed physically and also to prepare them for the battlefield that they’ll go back to. Arm injury. It’s like a false bombardment that’s come in and they’ve got to treat two casualties that currently have been wounded. So it’s up to the guys to understand what’s wrong with them and then treat them. They get into it, making sure it’s the very basic things like stopping massive bleeds, making sure the person can breathe and things like that. But it’s been very, very good so far and they’re taking it all on board. Medical training is an important skill and it’s a focus on training soldiers to look after themselves should they become injured, but also to look after the soldiers left and right of them. Right, let’s go. Let’s go now. On the frontline where there’s so many of them, casualties and wounds are going to happen over there. For them to know this stuff is critical and these guys are all over it. They’ve hardly put a foot wrong. In a five-week course we can’t teach every context or every scenario that the trainees will face but what we can give them is the basic skills and principles which they can then adapt in the context of what they’re facing on the battlefield, to survive and fight. Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes! Ukraine! Above all! Ukraine! Above all! Ukraine! Above all! I am proud of the fact that I went to defend my country, with my brothers. I will try to free Ukraine from the occupier and drive the enemy out of our land. On the one hand, it's the support given by the Norwegians, the British and generally the whole team working with us. It's impossible to appreciate how much of a boost this gives us. The most important thing that we have on the battlefield right now is that we are not alone, that we are with allies.

Channel: NATO

Views: 292,323

Keywords: NATO, OTAN, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Military, ukraine volunteers, training ukraine soldiers, training ukrainian soldiers, urban training british army, urban training, javelin missile, military training, training ukraine troops, training ukrainian soldiers uk, marksmanship, small arms training, ukraine, ukraine army training, javelin missile simulator, russia ukraine, ukrainian military, ukraine army, kyiv, volunteer army ukraine, battlefield training, ucraine, zsu, ЗСУ, afu

Id: 6hKIvMRpeAA

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023