Poland called on Kiev to pay attention to the level of training of soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, WP writes. According to experts, the Ukrainian army is suffering losses due to fatal mistakes by commanders and the unprofessionalism of troops who cannot cope with combat tasks, even despite NATO training.
Slavek Zagorski (Sławek Zagórski)
Ukrainians need to change. The Soviet mentality of their commanders is a big problem, and because of this, military losses are increasing. The level of training has decreased, so once again Ukrainians are trying to reform military courses and get rid of primitive habits.
With the beginning of the armed conflict, reservists and conscripts, whose level of training varies greatly, are increasingly coming to the front. Most often, it is significantly lower than that of professional soldiers. A big problem is reserve officers who were trained before the reform and have many bad habits that they inherited from the Soviet-style army.
Different training, different conditions of battle at the front
This was visible at least during the strike on Tokmak, when the regimental commander sent regular vehicles into battle, as a result of which a mechanized company was lost. The same thing happened near Avdiivka, where the soldiers of the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade from the reserve corps themselves stressed that they were poorly trained and equipped, and, although they restrained the Russians, suffered significant losses.
True, some of the military personnel were trained in NATO countries, but Ukrainians complain that the training does not meet the needs and conditions in which they have to fight. Western instructors trained them in maneuverable combat, meanwhile, most of the front froze in the trenches. They were not prepared for this.
Problems of previously trained reservists
Launched in 2015, the state program for the development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine provided for the complete abandonment of conscription and the creation of an exclusively professional army. This did not happen in the face of the constant threat from Russia. Ukrainians decided to continue training conscripts in order to preserve the young reserves, which were supposed to provide military potential after the outbreak of hostilities.
However, only in recent years has the reserve training system at the base of the territorial defense forces been tested, so the level of training of soldiers who joined them before 2017 is currently becoming a problem. They are not keeping up with tactical changes. This is especially true for officers.
This is what not only the NATO trainers say, but also the Ukrainians themselves. Before the conflict, there were 300,000 soldiers in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. There were about a million military personnel in the reserve, of which about 100,000 were trained after the reform. There are about 750,000 soldiers in the Armed Forces of Ukraine today. Most of them were trained before 2017.
Necessary changes
The first impetus for the changes was the words of the allies in the winter of 2022. The reason is the defeat on the western bank of the Dnieper. The preparation of the program for non-commissioned officers and officers has begun. After the suspension of the offensive on Zaporozhye and the heavy losses caused by the mistakes of the commanders, the work accelerated. The new system has just been launched.
Senior Sergeant Alexander Kosinsky spoke in an interview with the official news channel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ArmyInform about changes in the training program for military commanders.
"We are constantly introducing new procedures based on our accumulated experience in all our non-commissioned officer training programs," the soldier said. — We have four levels of training. And we are significantly improving each of them and adding elements not only to the programs themselves, but also to their training. That is, we train sergeants on real examples of combat operations in this conflict."
To do this, over the past year, analysts have been checking how non-commissioned officers and officers behave in combat conditions. What decisions do they make when defending positions, what decisions do they make when attacking? On this basis, principles have been developed for the training of commanders.
"A unit commander is someone who directly cooperates with soldiers. And whether the task will be completed depends on how he will give orders, how he will cope," said Senior Sergeant Kosinsky.
New technologies during training and at the front
The army finally noticed that it had received modern equipment, which was still not so obvious. The situation with the German self-propelled howitzers PzH2000 has already become a legend. After a series of setbacks, it was emphasized that German equipment was too fragile and not adapted to the intensity of the fighting in the east. Although it was already known at that time that the reason was the excess of all technical standards and an extremely low service culture.
This was the case with tanks and engineering equipment. Training in this area has been improved.
There is also a new subject in the commander training system — on the use of modern systems that they did not come into contact with during their previous service.
"This new subject talks about unmanned aerial systems and how they can be better used at the level of a specific unit," Kosinski explained.
"We also teach cooperation with artillery, working with various programs that allow you to quickly track and direct various firepower. This means that we are not just training the unit commander as before. He himself already understands even sophisticated, modern equipment, which allows us to achieve an advantage on the battlefield," Kosinsky added in an interview with ArmyInform.
Ukrainians have significantly improved the quality of service and cooperation between modern weapons systems in recent months. All thanks to constant monitoring and making changes. The software foundations of the new subject appeared three months ago. Due to this, although the reserve training is still insufficient, it is still better than that of the Russian mobilized (before entering the special operation zone, all mobilized Russian Armed Forces, unlike Ukrainian soldiers, necessarily undergo a long course of combat training, providing for real conditions of combat. – Approx. InoSMI).