Ukraine has sent troops to Germany to study the use of Western weapons. However, there was something unique about sending these troops, where the soldiers had very varied ages and abilities.
The Financial Times (FT) on Monday (28/8/2023) reported that one of the 71-year-old Ukrainian recruits had been sent there. The elderly man has volunteered to join the Ukrainian military.
NATO instructors who work at a military base near Klietz in northeastern Germany admit that the ages and abilities of those who come to learn the use of weapons vary greatly.
However, this has also become a complaint for the instructors. They say Ukrainian commanders on the front lines often prefer to keep their best soldiers in the trenches with them rather than send them for training abroad.
Nick Reynolds, a land warfare researcher at British defense and security think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said on many occasions military training provided by the West had not met Kyiv’s expectations.
Reynolds said Ukraine wanted its troops to train with tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and drones, in conditions that were appropriate to real battlefield conditions, but could also be risky for the military personnel involved.
“However, European countries have a low tolerance for training accidents, and this approach does not meet Kyiv’s requirements for trainees,” he explained.
One German trainer reported that he experienced tension with senior Ukrainian commanders, who received their military education in Soviet times and felt they knew better.
However, the number one challenge for the European program to teach Ukrainian troops to use Western equipment is the lack of translators, said Martin Bonn, a Dutch Brigadier General who is Deputy Head of the European Union’s Multinational Training Mission.
“The big challenge is translating words used in military or technical contexts… words that no one uses in everyday life,” Bonn said.
Language problems have also reportedly hampered the training of Ukrainian pilots to fly US-designed F-16 fighter jets, a program currently underway in Denmark.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh warned last week that Washington would not approve the delivery of F-16s to Kyiv by European countries until Ukrainian airmen learned to speak English properly.
Source : CNBC
