Ukraine Officers Say Recruits Arrive At Front Lines Pathetically Undertrained

In the latest harbinger of Ukraine’s inevitable defeat, combat commanders say newly-mobilized soldiers are arriving at the front lines so poorly-trained and clueless that they can’t even disassemble their weapons, according to the Washington Post.

One soldier described his basic training as “complete nonsense...everything is learned on the spot [at the front lines].” An officer who’d trained recruits said their rifle training was limited to just 20 rounds per soldier. 

In most armies, that would barely be considered “familiarization fire.” Consider that, as of 2018, the US Army’s basic combat training called for shooting 600 rounds in a 92-hour curriculum. Rifle ammo isn’t the only limiting factor: The Ukrainian officer also noted that that “there are no grenades for throwing in training centers, and there are no grenade launcher rounds in the training center.”

When soldiers arrive at the front, units are forced to spend weeks teaching them basis skills they should have already learned. “We had guys that didn’t even know how to disassemble and assemble a gun,” a deputy mechanized battalion commander told the Post. He dreads that sudden Russian progress will instantly turn new arrivals into pathetic cannon fodder:

“We are just wasting a lot of time here on basic training. If, God forbid, there will be a breakthrough near Chasiv Yar, and we get new infantry that doesn’t know basic things, they will be sent there to just die.”

Word of the poor preparation has gotten around — and is hampering recruitment efforts and fueling draft resistance. New advertising assures would-be enlistees that they’ll receive “60 days of preparation” before facing off with the Russian army.