How Kyiv risks losing the war due to defective training. “I get to the front without knowing to shoot with the weapon”

The prolonged war, and Ukraine is facing an acute crisis of herds. Many soldiers arrive in the first lines without proper training, and the survival rate of the newcomers is alarmingly small.

Ukrainian soldiers/photo: Archive

When the bus was transported to Oleksandr Yalovyi, 37, across the border, he didn't know where he was. The road sign “Welcome to Russia” gave it the first indication: it had arrived in the Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a surprising offensive in August 2024.

Ialovi, who suffers from a persistent foot pain, failed to attend all courses during the one -month training. He did not know how to shoot correctly with the weapon and had no basic survival skills. However, he was sent directly to the fight.

Just three weeks after reaching the front, his unit was attacked with gases by the Russians. Disoriented and lost, Ialovi was left alone, while the other soldiers fled.

“I really thought I was dead,” he confesses, quoted by Kyiv Independent.

Fortunately, it was found by other Ukrainian units and evacuated. But many others, just as unprepared, were not the same luck.

“Die in the first weeks”

After three years of war, Ukraine is facing a serious shortage of soldiers. The commanders on the front say that they receive more and more recruits who “behave as if they have not been trained at all.”

Major problems:

-superficial instruction -many do not learn to use weapons or protect themselves from drones.

-overcrowded training centers -the recruits stand in line for hours for practical exercises.

-Demoralized instructors -some have no fighting experience or are exhausted.

“(The new soldiers) die quickly, just before they reach the contact line,” says Oleksii, officer of the 109 Territorial Defense Brigade.

“Soviet mentality” and bureaucracy that costs lives

A former British officer fighting in Ukraine claims that training is “done on the knees”, and recruits do not learn essential things, such as medicine on the front or fight in trenches.

“People die when you do things at random,” says Glen Grant, military expert.

Several commanders accuse the Ukrainian military system of working according to outdated, Soviet principles, where no one is held responsible for recruits who die from bad training. The bureaucracy makes it difficult to update the training programs, although the war changes rapidly.

“We lose people in vain”

Some elite units, such as the Azov Brigade or the 3rd Army Corps, have created their own training systems. But most of the recruits reach the official military centers where the conditions are precarious:

-Dorm in tents, some without heating.

-I make miles on the floor between barracks and polygons.

-they get sick and miss crucial training days.

“The system is built so that no one assumes responsibility for poor training,” says Roman Donik, the director of a private training center.

There are solutions but the political will is missing

Experts say that Ukraine could reduce losses if it is expanding from 1.5 months to a minimum of 2-3 months, hires more real-experience instructors, modernize programs to include drones, trenches and survival under bombardment.

“We have all the elements to change the situation very quickly. We have experience. We have knowledge. But we don't see the will to change in the leadership”says Magnus Ek, a Swedish instructor who trains Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukraine is fighting not only with Russia, but also with its own outdated systems. If it does not urgently resolve the crisis of recruiting training, it risks losing the war not due to lack of weapons, but because of the lack of prepared soldiers. concludes Kyiv independently.