With Experienced Ukraine Troops Needed On Front Lines, Volunteers Train Recruits

As the war enters another climactic stage, more volunteers are ready, willing - and needed for the Ukrainian army. 

Since experienced troops are fully occupied in Donbas, the Kherson area, Kharkiv and elsewhere, veterans are stepping in both to train the new recruits - and to help supply them with good equipment. JL 

Vivian Salama reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Since the nationwide call to defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, many men and women with virtually no military experience have found themselves on the front lines fighting to defend their country. With the government in Kyiv stretched thin, private organizations are stepping in to fill the gaps and ensure that Ukraine’s volunteer fighters are prepared to take on the Russian military. (One) goal is to help volunteer fighters work on their target practice without wasting bullets.

Ivan Zdorovets closely inspected the tourniquet applied to a soldier’s arm by men in his unit.

“Congratulations, you’re dead,” he said to the patient, before moving on to the man lying on the ground next to him.

After completing his inspection he offered this assessment: “70% of you are dead; 30% will survive.”

The soldiers, who were taking part in training, all groaned, including the dead ones.

 

Since the nationwide call to defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, many men and women with virtually no military experience have found themselves on the front lines fighting to defend their country. With the government in Kyiv stretched thin, private organizations are stepping in to fill the gaps and ensure that Ukraine’s volunteer fighters are prepared to take on the Russian military.

With a recent uptick in attacks on Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern Ukrainian city about 45 miles from Russian-occupied territory, there is a particular sense of urgency to get the region’s volunteer fighters up to speed on basic tactics, from shooting to casualty extraction and tactical first aid.

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, about three dozen men and women from the Zaporizhzhia territorial defenses, one of many volunteer forces protecting Ukraine’s major cities, gathered on a recent afternoon for training at Mr. Zdorovets’s school.

The day began with lessons on basic first aid, tourniquet application, dragging and extracting casualties, and gunshot treatment.

Mr. Zdorovets had hoped to fight in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and backed separatists in the eastern Donbas region, but health concerns prevented him from joining the armed forces. Eager to help, he left his job as a construction executive to create Vohnyk, a nongovernmental organization that does basic combat and first-aid training, as well as humanitarian work in the broader Zaporizhzhia region.

Moscow has said that it intends to intensify its push for more territory in Zaporizhzhia, 60% of which is currently occupied by Russian forces, including Enerhodar, site of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and the Sea of Azov port city of Berdyansk.

Air-raid sirens still go off at least once a day in the city of Zaporizhzhia, which was hit last week by one of its worst attacks since the war began. In addition, the city has been absorbing the effects of three months of war, with evacuees, injured civilians and wounded soldiers all piling into the city in search of safety and treatment.

“When the sky fell down on us and the war began, we decided you can run or hit,” Mr. Zdorovets said. Since 2014, his organization has organized training in Zaporizhzhia, located 140 miles from Mariupol, to prepare Ukrainian fighters for what they believed was an inevitable war with Russia.

“We teach them in ways that the information is easy to remember, and we aim our training at people who want to learn,” he said.

Earlier that day, the Ukrainian entrepreneurs Oleksandr Lasota and Oleksiy Zubitz delivered laser sights that could be attached to assault rifles. The goal is to help volunteer fighters work on their target practice without wasting bullets.

Vohnyk, Mr. Zdorovets’s group, is also working with the Dark Angels, an NGO that has been helping him to raise funds and transport supplies to fighters on the front lines. In addition, the two groups are working to get businesses across Zaporizhzhia to produce bullets and body armor for the fighters with the territorial defense forces, who otherwise would have to purchase their own equipment.

The school has gone beyond just training since the latest war began. Mr. Zdorovets, the German-born Ukrainian Erik Alexander Nawrocky of the Dark Angels and their teams make regular trips to the front lines to deliver some of the most basic but desperately needed supplies—from power bars to flashlights and heaters. They even acquired a series of solar-powered electrical outlets for charging everything from drones to cellphones.

Eight years ago, thousands of poorly trained volunteers headed to the front to fight equally chaotic separatists and Russian fighters. They helped liberate some towns, but faced defeat when they faced better trained and equipped Russian army units operating covertly. Ukraine’s government sought to avoid that outcome this time by offering training and a structure for those who don’t want to make a full-time commitment to the army.

While Ukraine’s armed forces have been more effective, senior Ukrainian military officials and the fighters themselves acknowledge that their training falls short.

Vladimir, 19 years old, said that he was two months away from finishing his pharmacy degree when the war broke out and universities shut down. The Wall Street Journal agreed to use only his first name.

 

“I’m not ready professionally for the regular army, so I came here to train,” he said, adding that the army engages more heavily in direct combat than the territorial defense units. “I just feel like this is the right thing to do, and I feel strongly that we need to protect Ukraine and do what we can not to live in Russia.”

After lunch, it was time for the main event. In a simulation room, which resembles a high-tech obstacle course, the fighters broke up into teams of two: the injured and the functional. Mr. Zdorovets and his team transformed from teachers to assassins, and the lightheartedness of the day quickly disappeared with the simulated scene of darkness, explosions and real gunfire.

The soldiers’ mission: Find the injured, conduct a casualty evacuation and administer first aid. The results were daunting.

“You are all dead,” Mr. Zdorovets told them, revealing a radiation warning sign he discreetly planted on the faux battlefield. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, currently occupied by Russian forces, is the largest one in Europe.

“You didn’t see the hazard sign,” he told them. “You didn’t follow the first rule: Assess the situation and protect yourself.