UK Trainers Return to Ukraine

This is what happens when you escalate Donbass War into Ukraine War and you fail to win quickly

Editor’s note: The West physically left Ukraine at the onset of the war, de facto giving Moscow permission to swallow Ukraine if it could do so fast. It now feels emboldened by Russian setbacks and will be gradually tiptoeing back in.

There are several good reasons why Russia has to win quickly and why a drawn-out conflict equals strategic defeat for Russia. Nonetheless, Kremlin continues to undertake this enterprise as if Russia has all the time in the world.


Source: The Times

SAS troops have trained local forces in Kyiv for the first time since the war with Russia began, Ukrainian commanders have told The Times.

Officers from two battalions stationed in and around the capital said they had undergone military training from serving British special forces, one last week and the other the week before.

Captain Yuriy Myronenko, whose battalion is stationed in Obolon on the northern outskirts of Kyiv, said that military trainers had come to instruct new and returning military recruits to use NLAWs, British-supplied anti-tank missiles that were delivered in February as the invasion was beginning.

One Ukrainian special forces commander, who goes by the military nickname “Skiff”, said the 112th battalion, to which his unit was attached, had undergone training last week. The account was confirmed by his senior commander. “They were good guys, the Brits,” the commander, nicknamed “Bear”, said. “They have invited us to visit them when the war is over”.

British military trainers were first sent to Ukraine after the invasion of Crimea. They were withdrawn in February to avoid direct conflict with Russian forces and the possibility of Nato being drawn into the latest conflict.

The Ministry of Defence refused to confirm the Ukrainian commanders’ accounts, citing a longstanding convention not to comment on special operations. Former British soldiers, marines and special forces commandos are also in Ukraine working as training contractors and volunteers, but the Ukrainian officers were adamant that their training this month was carried out by serving British soldiers. James Heappey, the armed forces minister, said this week that Ukrainian troops were due to arrive in Britain next week for armoured vehicle training.

Myronenko said that the resumption of training was critical because new recruits and returning veterans who signed up when the invasion began had no experience with the anti-tank missiles, which Britain continued to send as Russian forces invaded.

“We have received huge military help from Britain,” he said. “But the people who knew how to use NLAWs were in other places, so we had to go on YouTube to teach ourselves. You can learn in seven minutes, five to seven minutes.

“After that we had good training. British officers were here two weeks ago in our unit and they trained us really good. And because we have had successes, we have self-confidence now.”

3 Comments
  1. guest says

    According to your mindset (and the mindset of the new-faningled Putin idolizers) it is perfectly OK for one country to just attack and occupy another country. (and how dare anyone be so insolent as to resist and fight the blessed liberators !!)
    According to your mindset it was perfectly fine when Soviet-Russia attacked Afghanistan, occupied it and de-nazified it.
    According to your mindset it was ferfectly OK when the U.S. attacked, occupied and denazified Iraq.
    According to this mindset it would be perfectly OK if China attacked, occupied and denazified Taiwan. (seeing Putin’s blunder the Chinese are reconsidering that venture —in one week V.V. fucked up 40 years of planning)

    What exactly is this blessed system that dreamers imagine V.V.P. would bring to them ? Russia is controlled and operated by the secret police (whatever it may be called, it is still the Cheka); the industry of Russia is owned and operated by 100 robber barons. If Putin and his system were to take over Europe and U.S. how would it be different ? (Jeff Bezos would change his name to Bezovich Bezovsky ?, Wallmart would be renamed to VoloMagazine ?)

    1. guest says

      What has Vladimir V. Putin learned from the story of Leonid Breznev ? —nothing at all

      In 1972 dictator Breznev visited Rich Nixon in the White House. Mr. Nixon invited Mr. Breznev to join in the New World Order. Leonid said no thanks, we will pursue our own dreams.

      In 1977 new U.S. government came in, Zbignev Brezinsky became National Security Advisor. Mr. Brezinsky worked out the details of suckering Leonid into a corner and a death-trap. The Soviet Union sent the Army of Red Liberation into Afghanistan to free the people and denazify the country. In the first five years of the war of liberation the United States provided just enough weapons to the Afghan fascists to keep the liberators busy. When the Bush crew decided that Soviet Russia had enough, they gave the fascists enough stingers and bazookas to take out every helicopter and tank in the vicinity.

      In 1988 Soviet Russia abandoned the Afghanistan dinazification project. In 1989 the Warsaw Pact came to an end —the Soviet Union followed shortly after.

      What was Leonid thinking in 1979 ? What were all those decked-out generals (with 50lb of medals on them) thinking in 1979 ?
      Was there no one in the KBG, in the Cheka, in the high command, in the communist party who opposed that operation cluster-fuck waiting to happen ?

      Vladimir Putin stated that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a disaster for Europe. He is correct, even if for the wrong reason.
      Has he looked into and studied the subject ? In the 1980s he was a young employee inside a box and couldn’t see anything outside his cubicle. But has he looked back ? analyzed the data from the outside ? Why hasn’t he learned anything from the experience ?

      We have all seen the footage of Obama making friends with Mr. Medvedev. Has Putin’s spy agency investigated the Obama crew ? Even the 6 o’clock news told us that Brezinsky was the force behind Obama’s election in 2008. Vladimir really believed that Zbignew changed his spots and became the friend of Muscovy and Pan-Slavia ?!?

      If you keep repeating the same process, expecting different outcome, history will repeat itself.

      February 24, 2022, was the start of the dissolution of the Empire of Muscovy. Mr. Nevsky may be turning in his grave, or he might just say, well, 5-600 years was a good run —Evil Empire old-Rome lasted 500 years, so 500 years is not bad for Evil Empire new-Rome.
      What would Peter Big Veluki say ?

  2. mijj says

    > “There are several good reasons why Russia has to win quickly and why a drawn-out conflict equals strategic defeat for Russia. Nonetheless, Kremlin continues to undertake this enterprise as if Russia has all the time in the world.”

    … maybe we should consider that Russia is deliberately dragging its feet to draw the US Empire in. Would there be any benefit to Russia-China if the US Empire became entangled in a drawn out Ukraine confusion rather than the quick win that the US expected of Russia?

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