A whole Ukrainian army is currently being formed, in Ukraine of course, but also in the United States, England and Europe. Tens of thousands of men are currently receiving accelerated training, with the aim of conducting a major counter-offensive against the Russian army within a few weeks. kyiv has announced that it wants to set up quite quickly in Ukraine the equivalent of nine assault brigades, ie around 40,000 men, most of them new fighters.
In the West, it is a European headquarters that coordinates training, which takes place in the United States on certain equipment, but also in England (training on heavy Challenger tanks has just ended) and all over Europe , particularly in Germany and Poland. Beyond training on sophisticated weapons and equipment, such as heavy tanks or ground-to-air batteries, it is essentially general training in infantry combat, Ukrainian recruits training in maneuvers on Western equipment in four weeks.
The recruits are all volunteers
At 80%, “these are soldiers with no combat experience, but they learn quickly, they are motivated”, says a European source. The Ukrainian recruits are indeed all volunteers and not conscripts mobilized as is the case on the Russian side and, still from a source close to the European general staff, we say to ourselves “bluffed” by the quality of recruitment of Ukrainians. Crews to be trained on Leopard 2 tanks, for example, are systematically selected from among young engineers or senior technicians. There is no question of trying to train people to drive such a sophisticated machine without solid basic training.
The Ukrainians have asked the European General Staff to organize training sessions so as to be able to set up and equip 14 brigades of soldiers. Nine of these brigades will be hard at work at the end of April, we are assured by this staff, that is to say between 35,000 and 45,000 men with their combat vehicles, whether armored personnel carriers or heavy tanks. Added to some 40,000 infantry also in training in Ukraine, this gives a force of 80,000 men, which is already more than enough to mount a vast counter-offensive for the month of May.
But perhaps the Ukrainian general staff will prefer to wait until the 14 brigades requested are actually operational before launching. In this case, it would be a force of some 130,000 men which could then go on the attack, but probably not before the summer.