Ukrainian volunteers train for war against threat of Russian invasion

The threat of full-scale conflict hangs over Ukraine. While on its border with Russia, tensions are still high, with tens of thousands of Russian soldiers mobilized, the Ukrainians are getting ready: the government wants to recruit more than 100,000 volunteers to join the “territorial defense brigades”, which will come to support the armed forces in the event of war.

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In the heart of the forest, in the suburbs of Kiev, on a disused industrial site, a hundred people train. And around, many journalists are present. The objective here is to be able to integrate at least 6,000 volunteers into the city’s territorial defense brigade. And the government’s ambition to recruit 130,000 citizens.

Roumilla, 59, in a down jacket, holds a wooden gun in her hands. She is a civil servant, lives in the Donetsk region and says she is ready to give her life for her country.

“The war has been going on for seven years and I think it’s time to take up arms to defend the homeland, the city and my children.”

Roumilla, 59 years old

at franceinfo

Anton Goloborodko, instructor, army reservist, instructs volunteers on how to load and unload a weapon. “Here are engineers, drivers, marketing managers, entrepreneurs, doctors, very different profiles, he indicates. People who join Territorial Defense are awakened patriots who understand that the defense of Ukraine is also their business.”

“The last few years have shown us that war can happen at any time and maybe the time has come, concludes Anton Goloborodko. Or maybe not, but we have to be ready, because the Kremlin might lose its mind…”

A little further, Vadim, 61, publisher, also trains. “You have to train because having Moscow as a neighbor is always a danger, he smiled. The Russians want to see us all terrorists or nationalists. But our approach is patriotic: if they don’t bother us, they don’t bother us, everything will be fine.”, lets go of the sexagenarian, who simulates a grenade throw in a group. And the instructor to make the volunteers repeat: “Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes“.