A new force is being marshalled to take on the Kremlin’s men.
SOMEWHERE IN EASTERN FRANCE
THREE UKRAINIAN soldiers, clutching Soviet-made AKM assault rifles, creep stealthily along zig-zagging trenches. In the distance, enemy soldiers are moving in the woods. Gunfire crackles across the plain. Plumes of smoke rise into the cold air. Tiny drones hover overhead. It is an all-too familiar scene from a war that drags on along Europe’s eastern fringe. Except that this simulation is taking place at an undisclosed location in eastern France, where its army is playing the enemy and training over 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers to form the backbone of a combined-arms brigade ready for deployment at the front.
It was during a visit to Paris in June by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, announced the idea. In late September the French air force flew in the Ukrainian soldiers. Since then they have been training on French kit, including Caesar howitzers and Milan anti-tank guided-missile systems, as well as taking part in battalion-level exercises in the field. The men are aged between 25 and 45; 90% of them are freshly drafted. At the French barracks, where cooks offer menus that alternate between Ukrainian (cooked cabbage and sausages) and local (croissants at breakfast), off-duty soldiers in combat fatigues hang around, training with gym weights, or smoking outside.
The training programme, says its director, Colonel Guillaume (the French army does not disclose family names), represents a “major shift” from those already in place in France and elsewhere in Europe. Part of the European Union’s training mission, it was “co-constructed” with Ukrainian instructors, who are also on site to supervise the new recruits along with 1,400 French soldiers. At nine weeks of hands-on training, it is longer than the standard five-week programme used by the British army in East Anglia under Operation Interflex, which has already trained 45,000 Ukrainians.
The novelty is the decision to train, deliver and equip a brigade by a European force (prior to last year’s Ukrainian counter-offensive America led a similar effort in Germany). To be joined by 1,500 soldiers already trained in Ukraine, “Anne of Kyiv”, as the new brigade is known, will be made up of two command posts, three infantry battalions, and full logistical support units.
A goods train carrying a first batch of 100 armoured vehicles for the brigade will leave France shortly for Ukraine, said Sébastien Lecornu, the defence minister, on November 14th. The brigade will also get Caesar howitzers, short-range air-defence systems, anti-tank missile launchers and other kit, which the Ukrainians will know how to use and maintain. Separately, French Mirage 2000 fighter jets, which are being adapted to carry French SCALP cruise missiles, will arrive in Ukraine in the new year.
The latest training scheme, suggests Mr Lecornu, could help to secure more of a tactical return on the battlefield. In a report published in July by the Royal United Services Institute, a British think-tank, Jack Watling and co-authors point to the Ukrainians’ unfamiliarity with donated kit and to the lack of collective training as two shortcomings that help explain the failings of counter-offensive operations in 2022 and 2023. At one point, the authors note, each trained Ukrainian brigade was using and trying to maintain up to five different types of armoured vehicle.
The French have had to adapt the scheme to the changing situation on the front, says Colonel Philippe, who is in charge of the final exercise. The French had to dig wider trenches to match those the Ukrainians use. The visitors asked for more time with drones. Also at the Ukrainians’ request, the focus of the final exercise is on defence. Troops have been out since the night before, with French planes and helicopters flying overhead, to test resistance to fatigue and stress.
Grenades are used to simulate air strikes. French military trainers insist that, despite Mr Zelensky’s troubles with conscription, these trainees—with an average age of 38—are motivated. “They learn twice as fast as our own new recruits,” says one instructor.
For all its merits, however, this effort may be too little too late. In recent months Ukraine has lost territory to Russia at multiple points along the front line. Its forces are stretched, and Ukraine is struggling to mobilise fresh conscripts. In September Mr Zelensky said he needed 14 new brigades, suggesting that not even four were yet equipped despite allied pledges. The election of Donald Trump has shifted the diplomatic mood. Mr Macron may have become one of Europe’s most outspoken hawks.
“Nothing should be decided about Ukraine without the Ukrainians, nor in Europe without Europeans,” declared Mr Macron in Paris on November 12th. But he and his fellow Europeans worry that they will get little say over what happens next. Helping Ukrainians gain whatever tactical advantage they can in order to strengthen their negotiating hand may be the best they can hope for.■
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Photograph: BACKGRID
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