After 12 years of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Western allies have less and less to teach Kyiv’s forces, says former Aidar Battalion company commander Yevhen Dykyi. That is why today it is better for foreign military personnel to come to Ukraine for training, not otherwise, Radio NV reports.
On 22 March, Yevhen Mezhevikin, deputy head of the Main Directorate of Doctrines and Training of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, announced the suspension of Ukrainian military training abroad.
According to him, it is necessary to respond more quickly to changes on the front lines and avoid wasting time moving personnel from country to country.
Teaching the West 21st-century warfare: real battlefield experience
As Dykyi notes, the training process has always been a two-way exchange.
“The percentage of what they were teaching us and what we were teaching them gradually shifted,” he explains.
At the start of the war, Ukrainian forces learned a lot from Western partners: medical practices, communications, and battle management.
Now, however, the Ukrainian army and the Russian army are two of the strongest armed forces in the world, both with real experience in 21st-century warfare involving massive use of drones.
“That is something our Western partners absolutely do not have, and as a result, they are already behind these realities,” Dykyi says.
Now the West comes to learn in Ukraine
Training Ukrainian troops abroad has effectively turned into training sessions for Western militaries.
“If that’s the case, it’s more logical: let them send their people here. In fact, they will come to learn, not to teach,” Dykyi emphasizes.
He believes it no longer makes sense to send entire Ukrainian units abroad so that partners can gain a new understanding of modern warfare.
Earlier, Ukraine hit the Primorsk in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast overnight on 23 March, causing a fire at the country’s largest Baltic oil export hub and forcing the evacuation of personnel, according to regional authorities.
