In a few weeks, the brigade “Mother in Kyiv” of the Ukrainian army will join the front in Ukraine. For now, she is completing her training in the French army training camps in Champagne. This is the first time that military combat training has been provided for the benefit of Ukrainians at the brigade level – a unit of 2,000 men.
Ambushed in the large kilometer of trenches dug on this maneuver camp, the soldiers of the brigade “Mother in Kyiv” are under fire. First, an artillery barrage then an infantry assault led by the French, in black fatigues.
The exercise aims to get the Ukrainian units to coordinate very quickly, explains Colonel Paul, head of the French instructors. “What we are trying to obtain is the maneuver of the Ukrainian tactical commands. This is what they are doing. They are destabilized, they have lost part of their trench. forced to force the Ukrainian command to maneuver and react. In this case, it is reacting more or less correctly. What I see is quite good.
In this case, the Ukrainian battalion managed, in a few minutes, to bring in its tanks and artillery to support its men in the trenches. Succeeding in this type of maneuver is a real challenge, especially for men who have recently been mobilized and who often have no military experience.
Only 10% of the brigade's men – the cadres – are seasoned soldiers but its commander, Colonel Dmitro Riumshin, is confident: “I believe that my brigade will be ready for combat. Because I find that the training we receive here, on this ground, is of very good quality. The French instructors and mentors have prepared this training at a very high level and it “That's why I believe that the level of training of my soldiers will be more than sufficient to be effective in a combat zone.”
Coming to attend today's exercise, the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu welcomes this first brigade fully trained and equipped in France and promises to repeat the experience: “I stand ready to be able to do it if the President of the Republic decides. I am in the process of organizing things so that we can have endurance. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen potential brigades, in need expressed by the Ukrainians, that means that this endurance is necessary and it is even in France's interest to be able to offer it.”
The men of the brigade “Mother in Kyiv” will return to Ukraine with the equipment on which they trained: 18 AMX 10 light tanks, 18 Caesar cannons and 128 armored personnel carriers.
