TV4 The news on the ground • 500,000 new soldiers are needed • “No one knows when or where we will be sent”
The ability to recruit and train new personnel is a key issue that can determine the outcome of the war. TV4 News’s dispatchers in Ukraine have visited one of the classified bases where new conscripts are trained.
– No one knows when or where we will be sent away. It’s tough, but we’ll probably make it, it’ll probably go well, says 24-year-old Grut, a newly enlisted soldier.
Returned to defend Ukraine
He was a handball professional in Romania, but this summer after the new mobilization laws, he decided to come home and do his duty.
– I have thought about it a lot, but decided to try to help Ukraine to victory, says Grut.
Are you scared?
– Not right now. In the field, the fear might come, but now it feels okay, he says.
In a secret location, somewhere in western Ukraine, new Ukrainian soldiers are being trained. They are between 20 and 55 years old and are to replenish the units that are fighting at the front.
To be trained for trenches
The military base that TV4 Nyheterna is admitted to is just one of many in Ukraine where new recruits are trained, here they have to accustom both body and mind to the grim reality of the Donbass trenches, where Russian troops attack in wave after wave. Many here received the summons in the mailbox last spring and now they are here.
– For me it was obvious. He who does not serve is not a real man, says “Partisan”, newly drafted Ukrainian soldier.
Instructor and medical soldier “Kiss” says it’s easier to train new recruits now.
– It is easier to train people now. Those who enlist now know more right from the start. They ask initiated questions about specific topics, says “Kiss.”
All outside help is needed
Down in the base’s bunker sits the man who controls the drones, and the commanders here emphasize that all outside help is needed. If Ukraine is to be able to withstand continued Russian attacks, the hundreds of thousands of new soldiers must receive both training and material support.
– Our faith will never fail. And the support from the West gives us strength in the battles, says Vitaliy Lavrenyuk, lieutenant colonel of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.
– This is the only option, there is nothing else. We cannot simply condone the Russian invasion. We do not forget how the full-scale invasion began, the damage they inflicted on Ukraine. The same thing can happen again, it happens all the time, says the medical soldier “Kiss”.