Ukrainian shopkeepers transformed into soldiers on the fields of Britain

A few days ago many of the Ukrainian recruits training at multiple army locations across Britain had never even fired a weapon. Now they are preparing to go back to their country and into battle against the Russians.

“They want to learn, learn, learn because they know they are going to war,” said Serjeant Dan Hayes, 31, who is helping to train the Ukrainians, most of whom were ordinary civilians before the conflict began.

The mission to teach enough men and women to replace the growing number of casualties on the front line is deemed so critical that Russia is thought to have tried to prevent it. Lieutenant Oleksii, 26, who is using a different name for security reasons, said Russian missiles had struck the base where recruits bound for Britain were staying last month. “In Ukraine we always have the risk of Russian bombs and when we prepared to come to the UK we were attacked from Russia and Belarus,” he said.

There are 600 recruits going through basic infantry training at four locations across England with hundreds more arriving daily as part of a promise to train 10,000 troops every 120 days.

Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, said there was a counterintelligence threat to the recruits while they were in the UK and precautions had been put in place to prevent Russian influence campaigns and spying.

Many Ukrainian soldiers, some of whom have been on the front line in the eastern Donbas region since the war began, are exhausted and need to be replaced.

The idea of the training is to get those who are prepared to fight ready for combat within weeks by teaching them a compressed version of the British Army’s 28-week combat infantry course. This covers weapons handling, live-fire marksmanship, basic fieldcraft skills, defending and attacking fortified positions, fighting in urban areas, medical training and how to deal with landmines. They train seven days a week from 6am until 10.30pm and recruits range from 18 to 55 years old.

British soldiers carrying out the training as part of Operation Interflex are also learning new skills from the instructors who are with them. This includes how to remove dead bodies from the battlefield without running the risk of being blown up by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) hidden inside them and how there is “nowhere” to hide from silent drones in modern warfare.

Vitaliy, 34, a recruit who is also using a different name, was an ecommerce manager. The father of one said the first time he had ever fired a gun was on a British army range. “I feel a high level of responsibility,” he said. “I am learning how to defend my country and my family. It is a really important opportunity for us to get the necessary skills to fight and defend our country.” He said that a few months ago he was “sitting in my office relaxed, drinking some coffee. But everything changed on February 24.”

He said he was now “hungry to fight. I never considered joining the armed forces before the war. I am sure I am doing the right thing and so are all of the other people here.” He said the most important lesson he had learnt was “to be one family” with his fellow recruits. They are being taught by 11th Security Force Assistance Brigade, led by Brigadier Justin Stenhouse, 46, and Ukrainian non-commissioned officers with recent combat experience. There is capacity to train up to 2,400 recruits at a time and an ambition, announced by Boris Johnson, to train 10,000 every 120 days.

These are “battle casualty replacements” to sustain the Ukrainian armed forces, a senior officer said.

Stenhouse said soldiers would learn more in two to three weeks on the front than he could ever hope to teach them in training. He said the mission was to give them the skills to stay alive that long. “A week ago they were civilians with no military experience. It is only day four and they are already on the ranges. A British recruit wouldn’t be on the ranges in four days,” he said.

He said their motivation to train was “seriously impressive”, adding: “Clearly they have got a good reason for that.” Stenhouse said it was important they had somewhere to train that was safe, adding: “Their camps are under attack in Ukraine. It stops their training. It slows it down.” Recruits learn fieldcraft skills from “how to dig a trench, how to fill a sandbag so you have the right fortifications, how to manoeuvre into fire, how not to panic when you first come into contact. Don’t run in a straight line, zigzag.”

He said it was difficult to simulate the sort of mind-numbing artillery bombardments the recruits might face in Ukraine, but the recruits would take part in exercises and battle simulations. “It is hard to get your head around the brutality of trench warfare”, he said.

Lieutenant Joe Coombs, 24, a platoon commander in 3 Rifles, said: “The two overarching themes are training them to stay alive during combat and the flip side is lethality — training them how to kill.” Hayes, 31, also in 3 Rifles and based in Edinburgh, said it was “heartbreaking” how the recruits had been forced to give up their civilian lives to fight to defend their homeland.

The Afghan war veteran said they held an “icebreaker session” on the first night in the new camp and realised all the recruits were ordinary civilians. He said: “All the guys were lorry drivers or they worked in quarries or they were shopkeepers. I’ve been in the army 14 years and I chose to join. These guys are all civvies. We are teaching sometimes up to 10pm at night. And we are investing everything we can because we know they are going to need it.”