Defending your country? Military training for Ukrainian youngsters | DW News

well staying with the war in Ukraine more than two years into Russia’s fullscale Invasion Ukrainian troops are dug in for a long War of Attrition and the Next Generation he’s getting ready ew’s amian aif has visited a group of young ukrainians practicing the basic skills they may need to defend their country a commander distributes rifles to the separate tactical group replicas that is the troops here are only teenagers some not even that old yet this is an after school club for the kids of shepetivka in Western Ukraine they meet three times a week to prepare for life in a country at War Alina drauk a junior sergeant in an air defense unit is the only adult here she founded the program in 2015 with funding from donations grants and the Local Government after Russia launched its fullscale invasion in 2022 the club’s activities took on a new urgency but Elena says her mission is bigger than just training future soldiers today you want to invest a maximum and bringing up this generation because the future depends on them only if they correctly understand who they are that they are citizens of Ukraine that they are needed here that they can develop the country only then will there be a future here oena acts mostly as a supervisor as the older kids teach the younger ones hard military skills like how to assemble a real Kalashnikov they use wooden rifles for the drills but there’s no playing around they’re fully aware that their life may someday depend on this training they enforce discipline and relish difficult conditions like the brief downpour that drenches the field today 16-year-old anilo is one that the younger kids look up to both his parents serve in the military and he’s committed to doing the same as for whether I’m ready to go and fight on the front line in the hot spots I think so yes for one thing because this is my duty as a citizen of Ukraine I’ve gained basic skills here that will help me in my training in the future and help me push the enemy out of our country at 12 stepan is the second youngest in the group he hopes to take a different route do you think you’d ever want to be a soldier anything can happen but I want to study for a civilian job there are hundreds of Youth groups like this in Ukraine and that number has grown significantly since the fullscale invasion that’s according to the youth and sports Ministry which provides direct financial support to the larger ones in the last two years a Ministry held conferences for youth groups across the country that involved 74,000 young people now in Ukraine is a time of internal reflection and these days parents are rethinking the question of how to raise their children so that they are citizens of an independent and capable country after two hours of exercises Spirits are high but the walls are covered with sobering reminders of the war these young men are graduat of the program who have died on the front lines several other graduates are still there fighting I worry when we chat I know they can’t immediately go online and read my messages but I’m always checking the messages to see if they’ve read what I sent whether they’ve been online whether everyone is there they don’t all answer right away but if they read the messages then everything is fine as the change back into their civilian clothes members of the separate tactical group are just kids once again some of them still have five or six years before they become adults and have to make adult decisions for others that Milestone is just a few months away Marina Miran is a military analyst in the war studies department at Kings College London welcome back to DW Marina um how does someone who studies war and military tactics like yourself View a story like this teenagers even a 12-year-old learning how to assemble machine guns and maybe to fight good evening Phil well I have looked at Wars around the world and certainly there are countries which do resort to using child soldiers unfortunately enough but from a western perspective it’s certainly a very desperate way of preparing your country for a war and that speaks volumes because Ukraine is lacking Manpower um we’ve heard the uh issues that have been caused by the new draft law we have heard that women will be mobilized as well or are being mobilized and and now we’re seeing children being prepared being accustomed so unfortunately this is a sad reality and I I think it should give us all a moment to think about how our world is evolving and where we’re going and Russia at at the moment appears not to be having a problems um enlisting Canon fod as it were for for this this battle because one of the Russian tactics just seems to be throw men at it well not all Russian tactics involve using massive um Manpower as it is however the Russians have changed their system in in terms of offering a very good sum to those who are willing to volunteer and go and fight in Ukraine and they get bonuses for destroying Western Equipment or for killing Ukrainian soldiers so it it’s quite an attractive way to go to get people to fight and of course we have to understand that both Ukraine and Russia they have been preparing their populations in terms of Designing the information Spectrum in such a way that people would be supporting whatever the respective governments or their politicians are doing so I think for the Russian case it’s working out quite well now and the G7 meeting uh today of course one of the possibilities to come out of this conference in Italy is a 10-year bilateral security agreement with the United States and a deal with Japan also likely what do you think is likely to be in those well I I I don’t want to take any guesses what I’m thinking is that um there is an attempt to ensure that Ukraine has the necessary financial aid and it was estimated that over the course of 10 years it would be needing some 486 billion dollars for reconstruction and this is an important point because we don’t know when the war will end But whichever way it will end Ukraine will need money for reconstruction ing the country and I think that is um one of the aspects that needs to be addressed straight away and I think that’s what the G7 leaders are trying to do when discussing on how to proceed with a frozen assets and of course um what needs to be ensured is that Ukraine has continued support regarding of the political climate and regarding of all the elections and the shift that we have been seeing since the European parliamentary election that this Aid to Ukraine can withstand all the turbulences so to say and the other pillar would be of course provision of military aid because money as it is cannot be readily turned around into military equipment and we have seen that with artillery shells for instance so I think those are the things that should be or will be most likely the priority okay thank you for that uh we’re grateful as ever military analyst Marina Miram from Kings College London thank you for having me

It’s been more than two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion — Ukrainian troops are dug in for a long war of attrition and the next generation is getting ready. 
DW’s Amien Essif has visited a group of young Ukrainians practicing the basic skills they may need to defend their country.

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27 comments

  5. So now, the West not only condone but fund child soldiers in Ukraine? I thought that thing was outlawed and criticized by the western part of the world?

  6. NATO should send people a part of military as Ukrainian has big shortage of soldiers who are dying in the war

  9. German teenagers in 1945 would have never predicted that they would be on the frontlines defending Berlin.
    Unfortunately, the same fate may soon await these Ukrainian youth.

  14. What is wrong with American women? Why aren't they in an uproar over all this? Why do our American women want to send/draft our American men off to war while American women don't serve? Aren't there any other American mothers that are like me and do not want American children 18 to anything drafted? What is wrong with American women?

  18. If they play video games and are good at it, they might be better served trained as FPV drone operators either observing Russian troops or attacking them.

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