How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

13 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

This in my mind is the number one driver of automated war… not having enough boots on the ground, or the support personnel to get those boots there, well-equiped, healthy, ready to kill and secure in their chosen gender identity and whatever else might be important at the time.

We have been seeing a fairly steady decline in the numbers of people in military services for many decades.  For quite a while it was more-or-less deliberate to adjust to perceived lower needs and/or costs.  Some of this was made up for by higher lethality and better survivability.  Now, or so it seems, the decline in interest is accelerating faster than the existing systems/structures can comfortably cope with. 

Efforts to increase enlistment and retention hasn't seemed to address the gap, therefore the obvious "go to" to maintain combat power is technology.  More lethality per uniformed person, less reliance on any one of them.

This is going to put further pressure on current manned systems such as tanks, aircraft, and ships in addition to questions about their cost effectiveness or survivability on the battlefield.

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

Soldiers who have signed a contract and are on the front line receive a monthly salary comparable to Russian salaries of about $2,500. Soldiers in the rear receive a salary of about $500 per month. I don't know anything about the salaries of mobilized Ukrainians. I assume that they are comparable to contract soldiers. The main difference with Russians is the salary, which is given in one payment for signing a contract - about $20,000, which Russians receive immediately after signing the contract. This is a huge amount by both Russian and Ukrainian standards. Families of Ukrainians whose relatives died on the front line can receive $24,000.

Generally speaking, those who volunteer for service tend to get paid better than those who are conscripted.  This is a pretty typical, and totally sensible, way to encourage volunteers to sign up.  Another incentive is allowing volunteers more freedom to choose things like branch of service and their job description.  My father, way back in 1959, made that a part of his reason for joining the US Army.

Looking at some recent reporting out of Ukraine, this seems to be the case.  A volunteer can even choose which unit to join, if accepted that is.  I am pretty sure this doesn't happen for those who are conscripted.

It's also pretty sure that volunteers are far more likely to choose to be something like a drone operator than a standard infantryman.  Which means the conscripts are more likely to (at least initially) get handled a rifle and a shovel.  I think I read something about that in Ukraine, but regardless I'd be shocked if this isn't the way things work.

Steve

[Eug85]

A huge problem of the Ukrainian army is the lack of punishment for soldiers who leave their positions without permission. Formally, there is a law that provides for imprisonment for this act. However, in practice, unauthorized abandonment of positions is so widespread that no one even tries to punish the perpetrators. There are simply not enough administrative resources for this. The Russians have it much simpler. For unauthorized abandonment of a position - a bullet in the head. Russian soldiers fear their commander more than the enemy.

[Eug85]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Generally speaking, those who volunteer for service tend to get paid better than those who are conscripted.  This is a pretty typical, and totally sensible, way to encourage volunteers to sign up.  Another incentive is allowing volunteers more freedom to choose things like branch of service and their job description.  My father, way back in 1959, made that a part of his reason for joining the US Army.

Looking at some recent reporting out of Ukraine, this seems to be the case.  A volunteer can even choose which unit to join, if accepted that is.  I am pretty sure this doesn't happen for those who are conscripted.

It's also pretty sure that volunteers are far more likely to choose to be something like a drone operator than a standard infantryman.  Which means the conscripts are more likely to (at least initially) get handled a rifle and a shovel.  I think I read something about that in Ukraine, but regardless I'd be shocked if this isn't the way things work.

Steve

In Ukrainian reality, everything happens not quite like that, although they strive for it. I recently cited a post by a military registration and enlistment office employee.

The system of training new recruits in Ukraine consists of two stages. The first stage is obtaining the specialty - shooter. In the Ukrainian army, all recruits receive this specialty regardless of further distribution. This specialty is usually obtained in old training centers of the Soviet type. The training in these training centers is very poor, it is conducted according to old Soviet standards and does not include the modern realities of the battlefield. Everyone complains about the old training centers and bad instructors who only formally perform their work and are not interested in the assimilation of new material by students. However, there is a chance that the recruit will end up in a new training center with highly motivated instructors and high training requirements. Or he will be sent to Europe for basic training, which is a dream for many, since the training there is at the highest level, and recruits receive additional perks after training there in the form of additional uniforms and additional equipment. But these lucky ones are in the minority. Most receive their initial qualifications in old training centers.

After completing the initial training, the recruit is assigned to one of the brigades, where he gets his second specialization (tanker, grenade launcher, sapper, etc.). Representatives of different brigades periodically come to the training centers and try to select the best recruits for themselves. The Airborne Forces and Marines have special privileges in this regard. According to Ukrainian laws, people who do not meet a number of requirements cannot serve in these troops. Therefore, all those who have passed the medical examination and are fit for military service are divided into two categories - those fit for service in the Airborne Forces and Marines and those unfit for service in these troops. A separate story with recruits with higher education and knowledge of English. These guys are being persuaded to sign a contract for a reserve officer.

Brigade commanders are very skeptical about the quality of training in training centers, so even if a soldier in a brigade is appointed to the position of a rifleman (he already has this specialization after graduating from the training center), in the brigade he receives additional training that is much more adequate. For this purpose, brigades have their own training units. In a brigade, the training of a soldier is taken much more seriously than in a training center, because the brigade commander is very interested in the combat readiness of his brigade.

There is no guarantee that after a recruit graduates from the training center, he will be taken by representatives of the brigade he originally wanted to join. If representatives of another brigade want him, the training center will have no reason not to give him to that brigade. But according to recent data, the situation is starting to change.

A slightly different, more advanced system of staffing operates in the National Guard. In addition, elite units such as "Azov" or the 3rd Assault Brigade have their own staffing system.

This is what I know about military training in Ukraine from open sources.

Edited 4 hours ago by Eug85

[Eug85]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/02/ukraine-training-soldiers-mobilization-war/

https://www.radiosvoboda.org/amp/uchebky-zsu-umovy-navchannya-mobilizatsiya-pidhotovka-rekruty/32835859.html

Two articles about the problems of training in the Ukrainian army. The second article is beyond translation, so I decided to translate it.

Behind the scenes of the war: what happens in the training centers of the Armed Forces.

The journalist and writer describes his experience of military training in the "uchebka" of two military units of the TRO in Eastern Ukraine.

Volunteers - those who consciously want to go to defend the country - cannot get to "zero" because of the bureaucratic red tape and the total "sovok" (outdated Soviet worldview) that prevails in the so-called "uchebkah" military training centers. Making your way through collecting butts and "painting the grass" (classic remnants of the Soviet army, when a recruit is forced to do pointless dirty work instead of real training) to the front is as difficult as getting at least some answer to the question - how can it even be at the time of the greatest threat for the existence of Ukraine and the urgent need of the army to replenish combat brigades? To the question: "why so?" - you hear the classic Soviet: "accordingly" (a typical excuse of officials who hide their irresponsibility behind tons of bureaucratic documents "according to paragraph ..., regulatory document ...).

References to endless pieces of paper, statutes, and regulations create an atmosphere of a Kafkaesque "Castle" in educational centers: an absurdity from which there is no way out for anyone.

I will immediately note that my personal experience described here may not be representative. But when talking with the military, it becomes clear that the vestiges of the "Soviet army", with a few exceptions, are still present in most of the so-called "training schools".

What does a volunteer (as recently as yesterday a civilian) expect when he enters the training center for the first time in his life a month before being sent to the front?

Of course, an intensive course of training from morning to evening, because often such people have no idea even about the correct stance during shooting.

It seems to me that the entire organization of the soldier training system should be based on this: a recruit who has arrived for training does not know anything and needs to be taught everything from "scratch". Instead, in reality you end up as if in a correctional labor colony for an indefinite period of time.

Before the official start of training, I spent more than two weeks (some even a month) in such a state of limbo, when you are kept in military units as a wage earner who somewhere in the distance hears the shots of the lucky ones who have already been issued a machine gun. No one can say for sure how many recruits will be kept in this status. How, in fact, and why the military commander tells that the training will start almost from the first hour, when you get to the training center. In fact, a recruit can visit several "training centers" around the country for a month before he finds himself in one that will be ready to accept him.

As for me, we, from the moment we arrived at "uchebka" we began to lose health, time and motivation.

At the same time, in my case, the path to "uchebka" was as simple as possible:

I arrived at the position of the brigade in which I was going to serve,
met the direct management,
received a report from the brigade,
came with him to the military commissariat and mobilized.

That was the end of the adequate part of the process, because then our group of recruits was brought to the training center, the conditions in which were more reminiscent of a combination of a tube dispensary and a pre-trial detention center: mold, fungus, humidity, full of sick recruits who were given children's flu pills at a body temperature of 39 degrees Celsius.

There was no communication with us, the newly arrived future defenders of the country, during the first days.

We just wandered arbitrarily from one platoon to another, collected garbage, collected firewood, sorted pallets, until, with the help of the General Staff, I managed to meet with the commander of the unit (apparently he means that he used his status as a journalist and connections in the means mass media to press the leadership of the educational center). He allowed to ask "questions that disturb":

- I am a volunteer who has to go to "zero" in a month. The question is the following: why have I been collecting candy wrappers on the territory of the unit for a week? Where is the study?

In response, I heard that the educational process begins "according to the relevant order", which does not exist yet. Therefore, they have no right to involve us in training.

No one can say when and whether this order will be in this training center at all, how, in fact, and why we were brought right now and right here.

In the dry residue: while we wait for the order, we continue to collect wrappers and sort pallets.

An interesting moment: when practical training finally began in the company adjacent to ours, I heard from one of the cadets after another shift:

- Tomorrow I will go to these hellish shootings.

After two or three weeks of "painting the grass", the recruit simply forgets what he is here for, and that it is the "painting" that should annoy him, and not the training shootings. By the way, the cadet worried in vain: since their company was the last to fire, it happened already at night and purely formally, because the magazine had to shoot the ammunition.

Since the training never started for us in the first "uchebka", and due to the pressure of the General Staff, our stay became a problem for the management of the training center, we were transferred to the next training center, where the mold on the walls changed to tents in the forest.

However, it did not play a special role for me, because I left the first "uchebka" when I was quite ill.

The second training center already resembled a full-fledged prison colony: training did start here after a while, which officially opened the door to the ax and 15-hour shifts for gathering firewood and working in the kitchen.

In addition, we were met by "old-timers": recruits from the previous course with a long term of service, who were left here for the second round and who now transferred the accumulated experience to us (he meant the mobilized ones who had already finished the courses, but no brigade showed them interest for one reason or another).

To be fair, it must be said that in the second training center sick soldiers were treated more responsibly, so when it became difficult for me to lift an ax, I was removed from duty and sent to the hospital, where I was hospitalized with acute bronchitis and low saturation as a legacy of "combat skills" with of the previous so-called educational center.

There are no problems with equipment: the training part provides everything you need, from socks to tactical glasses and a raincoat.

But there are questions about the quality of the uniform, at least in the first "uchebka" where we were issued this uniform.

The clothes were issued, but the quality is a question
Personally, on both jackets, the zippers flew off on the third day. At first, I simply fastened the top with velcro, then sewed the zippers and wore the jacket over my head, because in stock they could only replace it with a set that was two sizes larger. Eventually I spat on it and went around in my civilian military jacket until I bought myself a normal set in town.

At first glance, it may seem that the appearance of a soldier is insignificant against the background of global training problems, but believe me, it is not so. Any professional military person will tell you that the key to getting the upper hand over the enemy is motivation. Not superiority in weapons, not combat skills - above all, motivation. Without it, even the latest Western equipment is left on the battlefield, and personnel scatter. Well, all this lowers the recruit - in a low-quality uniform, two sizes larger - to the level of the infamous Russian "chmons". This at the very beginning of the service kills any motivation to move forward in this system. Be that as it may, it is better to come to training centers with your own uniform and shoes, preferably in two sets.

Food
Here everything depends on the specific training center in which the recruit is.

In the first "uchebka" the food was much better than in the second, but in the hospital I met guys from the neighboring "uchebka" who were even given juice with chocolate, meat instead of "rubber" sausage. What exactly it depends on is difficult to say.

In general, meals are three times a day and include a typical army ration: porridge with stew or sausage, soups, vegetable salad, bread, butter, biscuits and tea.

Personnel
To put it metaphorically, in my case the "uchebka" turned out to be inside out - on February 24, 2022: falling epileptics, "purring" ex-convicts, szchshniks (several cases of leaving the unit in the first two weeks) - and many random people without any referral to no army brigades waiting for "buyers".

Some openly said that they came for money to cover debts. The feeling that we are here for a common cause has completely disappeared. the composition of new recruits, however, differed in both educational centers. In the first seventy percent purposefully came to the contract, often already having at least an idea of handling weapons or even combat experience. Whereas in the second training center, the volunteer sector was minimal and the age limit was mostly measured at 40+.

Most of the recruits were mobilized and frankly random people in the army: some with criminal records, serious illnesses, without motivation and education (one could not even write).

In the course of training, due to the seizures that happened to the cadets just on the street, several epileptics were found, and already in the hospital, hepatitis was found in two recruits during the very first blood test.

In addition, a homeless man was also brought to us: at the Military Commissariat, he was offered a "warm winter", washed, bought some clothes from a secondhand store and threw them into the forest. The only thing that the military commissars forgot to mention was his legs, which were literally rotting and oozing, because of which he was taken to the hospital the very next day, from where... they returned as completely fit.

So why is it surprising that men are running away from the military commissar? And they do it at the same time when in Kyiv, Lviv and other big cities you have to reserve a place in a restaurant in advance to get there.

And this is another fact: people no longer want to fight. You can deny this, shoot patriotic stories about "Potemkin villages" for the leadership instead of real "training courses", recall Bucha, Irpin, constant shelling of cities. But on Wednesday afternoon, during the air raid, you have to queue to get into the hall at the restaurants of Kyiv. And the contingent that, contrary to this, finds itself in the "uchebka" is only a reflection of this reality. The volunteer movement has been working on creativity for a long time - it is not enough for donors to simply mention that there is a war in Ukraine. Exactly the same with mobilization.

The cadets bitterly joke that when they meet the enemy, they will begin to cough loudly in his direction and chop firewood - everything they learned in a month.

By the way, my purely subjective sample of mobilized (not volunteers) geographically gathers people from the hinterlands of the regions, not from the regional centers.

All this is a problem that should have been discussed yesterday, otherwise half a million unprepared Ukrainians will face several million unprepared Russians, and the calculator will decide everything.

The ideological component is not just at zero, it prevails in the negative.

One of the officers, right in front of the line of cadets, said that he didn't care about them when they asked why they were being taken out of training to unload pallets.

This is not surprising, because training courses are often called "cesspools" for those officers whose military career has already ended. And, of course, where to put them, if not to train future soldiers...

But worst of all, in my opinion, is what happens to those - now very rare - volunteers.

In the first "uchebka" I met several boys aged 19-23 who were going to go to the front as stormtroopers in the future. Of course, they will have a chance if they find themselves in the training center of a brigade like the Third Assault Brigade: with brilliant training and a powerful ideological core, the experience of which for some reason has not yet been scaled within the Armed Forces. But such divisions are few.

By the way, I offered my help in this regard, because abroad I gave lectures on the psychological characteristics of human behavior during interrogation with the use of torture. But here in the "textbook" the reaction to my proposal remained at the level of "great ideas".

In the end, I said so to one of the commanders: "You are preparing "two hundred" here. And it's also your fault if they don't even realize it."

Ping-pong, or "buyers"
The last part of the training process in some ways duplicates its beginning: the chaos of moving the newly "trained" fighters around the country, or ping-pong.

When the question arises as to which brigade the recruit should eventually get into, it turns out that neither the relationship nor the recruiting programs from the brigades (a couple of guys sent their resumes, were interviewed for a specific position) do not matter at all.

Half a day before I was sent to my brigade, I suddenly found out that I was being sent to a completely different unit in a completely different direction. The same thing happened to the vast majority of cadets. A chaos of calls to acquaintances begins, who could either quickly influence the situation, or transfer a person to the right brigade at least in a month. So even those recruits who took the (absolutely logical) advice of the Ministry of Defense and chose in advance the unit, position and team in which they want to serve, are unable to influence this process in front of the "buyers" - people who simply plug holes in their own brigades with yesterday's cadets.

For volunteers, this means that, for example, a potential UAV operator with an IT education becomes a driver of an armored personnel carrier, or, as in my case, instead of a combat position at "zero" in reality, you end up in a foreign brigade for a position at the headquarters.

Is this the army?
"This is the army" is a phrase I heard everywhere, even from cadets, when discussing everything that happens in training centers. In other words, it sounds like this: "This is Ukraine, and this is the norm here, kill it, ignore it." One of the comrades-in-arms, who was waiting for me at ground zero when I arrived from the uchebka, directly said:

Do you want to be honest? After your article, the mold will be washed away, the walls will be painted, the temporary captain will be reprimanded - and tomorrow the same thing will happen here, not to mention the whole country. It was the same with me a year ago, it is the same with you now, and it will be the same here a year from now. Because this is an army of millions, and globally, against the background of weapons, drones, shells, fortifications, prostheses, rehabilitation, everyone does not care about "uchebka". Yes, the foundation of this building is sinking, and eventually everything can move. But as long as the elite of professionals at the front are faltering, but shooting, no one will pay attention to the weak moan below.

I always want to add a question mark to this phrase: "Is this the army?" Because if it is said in Israel or the United States, it will not be understood even on a cultural level.

The word "army" does not mean absurdity and unprofessionalism, empty waste of time, strength, health, especially during the war. And worst of all, if we ourselves agree with what should not be the norm, as with what is normal.

So for me personally, this is not a finished thought, but only a question mark - is it an army?

Training in a brigade
This review would be incomplete without a comparison of the combined military "uchebka" with the "uchebka" of the brigade, into which the cadet enters already as a soldier for service. After I managed to quickly (again, thanks to the General Staff) transfer from someone else's brigade to my own, I immediately felt a striking difference between the atmosphere of the front and the sorting of pallets. I will say only two key things.

The first thing that catches your eye is the horizontal connections between commanders and personnel. Actually, you still need to recognize that the commander is standing in front of you, because the style of communication with subordinates makes everyone equal, regardless of rank and position. Any "parquetness" disappears, an almost sacred trembling in front of the senior in rank. Everyone understands that right now everyone present is risking their lives, and there is simply no time for formalities.

The second point: in just one day at the range, I gained more experience than in two months of wandering between "uchebkas".
Of course, this is primarily due to the individual approach that the own brigade is able to provide to the newcomer, as opposed to hundreds of cadets who must be trained in the training course. For example, it became possible to shoot in a day such a number of bk as in "uchebka" was shot in a week. The same applies to operational training for all types of weapons that are only available at positions and which are often simply not available in training centers. That is, there is a quick and high-quality specification of a fighter according to the chosen combat direction in his own brigade. This, in turn, raises the question of the expediency of the combined military "uchebkas" as such.

What to do?
What can be the way out?

I will immediately note that increasing the training period while maintaining the system does not make any sense.

The fact is that even if the "responsible person" personally goes through all the "uchebkas", then "accordingly" will still win, because to inspect this system is only to feed it. In our "uchebka", management checks were almost weekly at the level of counting the trees in the forest (literally) and building a mock-up of a clean sorter for the general, rather than effective time and task management. This system cannot be changed unless new blood is poured into it: replacing Soviet officers with combatants with a completely different vision of life and values. But even this will objectively take years, because the system will resist, besides, such officers are now needed like air at the front.

A possible way out is state licensing of private educational centers with recognition of their certificates at the state level.

For example, private sniper courses or takmed and UAV courses.

Instructors in such centers may be partially the same combat sergeants, together with cadets freed from the "scoop" and absurd state "uchebka" and concentrated exclusively on the practice of combat conditions.

Funds for this can be taken from the salaries of cadets, to whom the state currently pays UAH 20,000 each. for a month of stay in the "uchebka" (600,000 hryvnias per platoon). These 20,000 hryvnias are eventually converted into the  coffin of an untrained fighter, as is constantly said by the instructors themselves, who try to teach the cadet at least how to hold an AK correctly.

In general, all the benefits of "uchebka" that can be gathered here are held by combat sergeants (less often - officers) and are concentrated in the last two weeks of intensive training, if you are lucky with the instructors, as we were lucky in both training units.

But objectively, even such a model of change takes time: at least to turn the legislative machine in the right direction.

Therefore, there is another option: to maximize the amount of training abroad, ideally with Ukrainian combat instructors.

Perhaps it is worth trying to create a network of foreign training hubs that will combine Western infrastructure with the combat experience of the best Ukrainian instructors.

Yes, training abroad is still taking place, but it is often far below the required level or far from the realities of the Ukrainian front, as emphasized by the combat instructors with whom I had the opportunity to communicate and who completed the Western course.

Therefore, the big problem of Ukrainian "uchebas" also lies in the complete failure of communication of this topic with society: the unknown creates fear, fear paralyzes the will and leads to inaction, stupor.

What is the phenomenon of the same Third Assault Brigade?

These people made themselves as transparent as glass: everything is as clear and understandable as possible, what exactly awaits the recruit.

This path - between civilian life and the front - should be equally transparent for everyone who will risk life at "zero" in a month.

Edited 1 hour ago by Eug85

[IllegalLettuce]

Quote

Russian exiled opposition outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on September 25 that it identified an FSB Spetsnaz servicemember who died fighting in Kursk Oblast in August 2024 — confirming that elements of FSB Spetsnaz are fighting in Kursk Oblast.[6] Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that an FSB officer stated that the FSB has tasked FSB Spetsnaz, including elements of the Alpha and Vympel groups, with identifying and destroying Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups in Kursk Oblast.[7] The FSB officer reportedly stated that the Alpha and Vympel groups are ill-suited for combined arms battles involving heavy equipment against regular military forces, however.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-26-2024

 

Cracking up thinking of some poor FSB officer being informed he needs to stop a Ukrainian mechanised assault

[Maciej Zwolinski]

13 hours ago, Silentkilarz said:

Whats wrong with death metal? I cant headbang in here now? lol

If you can headbang Russian drones down, I see great career prospects for you in ZSU 

[Silentkilarz]

15 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

If you can headbang Russian drones down, I see great career prospects for you in ZSU 

Nah, seen way to many videos of Russians trying that and they seem to not get back up. I'll just keep to headbanging music.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

11 hours ago, FancyCat said:

All Russian soldiers in Ukraine are volunteers, lured by Russian oil and gas profits, wages that for many, outmass whatever average wage they would get in their home town.

Definitely not all. There is a surprisingly high number of volunteers, as you said coming mostly from poor areas of Russia lured by high pay and very high enlistment bonuses. But there are also mobiks, i.e. called up reservists. The only category which is not being deployed to the Ukraine  are fresh conscripts, i.e. 18-year olds performing their initial period of compulsory military service. However, at the moment they complete their obligatory term of service, they are released into the reserves and can be called up.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

2 minutes ago, Silentkilarz said:

Nah, seen way to many videos of Russians trying that and they seem to not get back up. I'll just keep to headbanging music.

Incredibly, I also saw one video of a Russian headbutting a drone and successfully disabling it. It must have been a hell of a surprise for him.

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, Eug85 said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/02/ukraine-training-soldiers-mobilization-war/

 

Many thanks for the translations. (Maybe the folks here who tried to drive you off should start rethinking that, even if it isn't what they want to hear)

"What can men do against such reckless hate?"

"Ride out and meet them."

Ukrainian civilians are shown how to operate an antitank weapon on May 26 on a military training course run by the Azov Battalion. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)

Edited 1 hour ago by LongLeftFlank

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Many thanks for the translations. (Maybe the folks here who tried to drive you off should start rethinking that, even if it isn't what they want to hear)

"What can men do against such reckless hate?"

"Ride out and meet them."

Ukrainian civilians are shown how to operate an antitank weapon on May 26 on a military training course run by the Azov Battalion. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)

Ya know, I was going to leave it alone. But you can’t ignore the whole contrarian thing, can you?

Ok, let’s talk about these “enlightening” posts for a second. While I have no doubt that Ukrainian force generation is a hot mess in places - putting that many people under arms so quickly is never going to be smooth. Let’s talk about the motivation for sharing this with us. Beyond making you feel all smug because the foreign student likes Bergman films too, and the rest of us simple don’t get it. I challenge the motivations of this poster.

Both reports look like they are from reputable sources, so we are off to a good start. They speak on a window of the truth of some of the difficulties the UA is having trying to turn civilians into soldiers. These are not the first of these, and won’t be the last. But what is the motivation for sharing these specific posts?

Well one could take the “honest hard truth” approach, from which we are to take away…what, exactly? The majority of this thread is Western (Europe and NA), so we are in no position to “make things better for the UA.” Beyond continued western support. We cannot put pressure on the Ukrainian military or government with respect to their internal military force generation. I cannot write my MP and expect them to somehow send along the message. We can advocate for more western training but there is a point it becomes impractical. We are not any better set up to train hundreds of thousands of troops quickly either. Add to this the fact that we have no real expertise or experience in this sort of war either. We can likely do well on bare bones basics, like “how not to shoot yourselves” but are no masters of this environment. So just how genuine is this little FYI?

Now articles like these presented in isolation to a western audience could also easily be to promote “just how bad things are for Ukraine…so what is the point?” If a poster has a habit of only posting these sorts of things, that is the point when I begin to seriously doubt their motives. From this particular poster we have already had an expose on how bad the Ukrainian officer corps is, troops can desert with abandoned and no one is doing anything about it, and now the entire military training system is in poor shape.  Now perhaps this poster is just a miserable cuss and nothing is good in their world. Or they are sending out a stream of bad news for Ukraine to a western audience to nudge our thinking on the whole point of this war.

I cannot say which one definitively but my suspicions are high at this point. Particularly when combined with the whole Google Translate - “me no speaky” nonsense. If people want “hard truth” it is called the Internet - go punch in “troubles with Ukrainian military training”. And then punch in “Ukrainian military training successes”. Spend 20 mins and see that the real truth is somewhere in the middle. Overall, however, it is a freakin miracle they managed to pull it off at all. The challenges of trying to mobilize while being invaded is one for the history books. Right up there with the Soviet Union in 1940-41…and Ukraine does not have the largest backyard in the world to pull back to.

As to Eug85, maybe wanna hold off the applause just yet.

Edited 10 minutes ago by The_Capt