The first explosions rung out on the right of the building, while bursts of gunfire made themselves heard. Enveloped in swirling smoke, the soldiers rushed against the wall. One of them checked that the door of the house wasn't booby-trapped and broke it down, backed by the other members of his military brigade. Another went upstairs and waved a red rag at the window, marking the front line. Behind him, the perimeter was secured, and in front, the enemy was watching. Standing back a few meters, an instructor was surveying the scene. He corrected the stance of one recruit and called for another to turn around so as not to be caught off guard. An English-Ukrainian translator ran after him, passing on the orders.
This training session took place on Monday, August 15, at a military base in southeast England. At the request of the British army, neither the exact location nor the names of the Ukrainian service members can be disclosed. For this Ukrainian army unit, it was the fourth and final day of exercises in urban combat techniques, within the framework of several weeks of military training.
On June 17, the British government announced the launch of a UK training program for Ukrainian soldiers. Two thousand of them have already taken part. London has set a target of training 10,000 soldiers every three months, at a regular pace. Over nearly three weeks, the new recruits — who've often received no previous training — learn the rudiments of techniques adapted to the war in Ukraine: handling weapons, urban combat, trench warfare, emergency care for the wounded and the rules of armed conflict.
'I had to act to help end this war'
Serhii is 25 years old. In June, he was still a young consultant in a computer company in Cherkasy, a city in central Ukraine 200 kilometers south of Kyiv. "In the first few months, I thought maybe the conflict wouldn't last," he explained in good English, his face covered with a mask to remain anonymous and avoid endangering his family. "That's clearly not the case, and I had to act to help end this war." He expressed his outrage at massacres committed by the Russian army. Like many of his compatriots, he enlisted and was very quickly sent to this British military base for training. He had never touched a weapon in his life but now said he is ready to go to the front, even if he is "afraid of dying, of course."
Since 2015 and the start of the conflict in the Donbas, the British army had already trained 22,000 Ukrainian soldiers. But that was training that took place on Kyiv's military bases. After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the capital city were regularly bombed, and the program became too dangerous. So, London offered to shift the training back to the UK, onto four British bases, and mobilized a thousand of its military to do so. Other countries — the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden — have joined the operation and are beginning to send their own trainers to reinforce the program.
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