close
close

Among the national crisis of the collection of one Ukrainian unit, he adopts a different approach

Among the national crisis of the collection of one Ukrainian unit, he adopts a different approach

21 -year -old Denys Rizhov came across the third school Drone Brigades, Kill House, accidentally – a random link to the movie on YouTube. A soft, reserved young man with a pony, bored by college, working with a strange work and uncertain what his future will bring, Rizhov was intrigued enough to continue on the internet. The more he learned, the more he liked it, and decided to start saving $ 190, which would cost a week of classes in technology and tactical use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

He suited and saved for months, and when he finally took the course, he couldn’t like him more. Now he plans to return to further training-Drone Drone Drone Week, and then an intensive seven-day course of the Third School Brigade, which is testing volunteers interested in joining the unit.

At a time when the lion’s share of Ukrainians is afraid to join the armed forces or actively rely on it – from recruiters and planning an illegally escaping country – more and more often he enhances the elite combat unit, attracted by the evolution of drone technology and what he saw about the streak ethos of the third Brigades.

Almost three years after the Russian invasion, one of the most steep challenges, which is facing war efforts at Ukrainian strength, is the lack of labor. Almost every Ukrainian knows someone who has been killed or mutilated in the trenches. The long lines that circulated around the recruitment centers in the first days of the war are now unthinkable. Recruiter crews wander the streets with unmarked car cars, stopping men to check their documents and pull them against their will to military processing centers.

Few topics are more talked than the consumption crisis – whether the law is fair, regardless of whether the Ewaders are good or bad, and like a country without enough soldiers can hope to overcome a much larger enemy involved in the war for exhaustion.

This is not like the era in Vietnam – in fact, no Ukrainians protest against the war or question the need for Moscow to rely. “Everyone wants victory”, explains Yevhen Vasyliev, a drone instructor from the third assault brigade. “But nobody wants to serve.” And Ukraine is not unique.

Last Surveys On the other side of the west, they suggest a widespread reluctance to fight. Only 45% from 18 to 34-year-old Americans, 32% of continental Europeans and 29% of the British at the age of fighting claims that they would be ready to take weapons.

Once controversial, now worshiped – “the best combat unit in Ukraine”

On this gloomy background, the third assault brigade stands out due to a strict relief. The hard, disciplined and highly selective group of bills is “the best combat unit in Ukraine.” It comes from the legendary Azova regiment, self -financed militia volunteers, which flirted with fascism, when it was founded in 2014, the group eventually limited their political connections, recruiting more and more broadly and consisting of Ukrainian armed forces.

In 2022, during the siege of Mariupol, several hundred Azov fighters kept months against the full strength of the Russian army, removing all persistent Ukrainian fears about their policy. After a long, cruel struggle, the Russian troops swept through Mariupol and detached a little 900 Azov prisoners, raising them as the most respected war heroes in the country.

In the spring of 2024, when the Ukrainian army turned to forced mobilization, the third brigade began to advertise as a more attractive alternative – free -standing, elite and effective on the battlefield. Billboards, social media and recruitment events in secondary schools and city service centers strengthened the message. “Only highly motivated and strongly clergy fighters, ready for constant improvement and hard battles with the enemy on the front line, enter our ranks”, groups website announces. And young men gather to him – an opportunity for heroism and honor.

According to recruitersThe brigade is about 900 applications per month and rejects many of them, even when the regular army struggles with catastrophically thinning ranks and growing desertions.

A large part of the Mystique Group Agese is her training initiatives. The seven -day intensive course tempts and test potential volunteers in the care of physical training, psychologists sessions, lectures on military tactics and medicine, and simulated combat exercises. The rhetoric of the individual is as difficult as inspiring. “Learn if you are ready”, the group’s advertising material Call. “Wake up the spirit of a warrior in you.” Trainees can quit the course at any time, but many who insist and then join the brigade.

New recruits who sign long -term contracts are going through a few weeks of the Boot camp, are also famous for their rigors, and then the month of adapted selection instructions. Among the options: everything, from “rear vacancies”, such as Radioman and Sapper, to the roles with combat-between, among others, the roles, tanks commander and anti-tail rocket rocket system operator.

Inside Kill House, the third art of the drone brigade

The latest addition to this list of training options, Kill House Drone School, launched at the beginning of 2024, currently operates in four places in Ukraine. Instructions are held in Kiev in the abandoned factory near the city center. A handful of what looks like converted shipping containers, a vast vast hangar equipped as a field of exercise. The very size of muddy space is inspiring. Among the other objects on the obstacle route: excavation, tank, rusting minivan and dozens of brightly lit rims to test the skills of the flying drone operator and manual dexterity.

Several dozen interns and a handful of instructors move from the station to the station on the day I visit – a room, a shed of simulators, an engineering room and pilot stations. Every few minutes the explosion breaks the silence-seed-day intensive brigade course takes place nearby. But the spirit in the hangar is more like a campus than basic training. There is no compulsion, and the interns that everyone paid for the privilege is clearly hungry.

The class is a mix of civilians and active soldiers who returned to school in their time to improve their flying skills. Instructors are all military, most of them have combat experience, but it is not easy to tell them from interns – they are about the same age. “There is no hierarchy here”-explains the Vasyliev instructor-“Lack of intimidation in the Soviet style. Our commanders treat people with respect. “And the respect is clearly in both directions; Even the most noisy of young men seem a bit excited about their experts.

It is difficult not to contrast with the way the regular army trains new recruits, preparatory commonly perceived so far from the appropriate one. This is common knowledge among Ukrainians, military and civilian, army interns appear on the front unprepared. According to one of the researchers who are studying military on board, Olesiy Moskalenko from the Come Back Back Alive Foundation, morale often sinks, and does not improve during basic training, and newly registered warriors often come to trenches that do not trust in their most basic skills , including the way of using the rifle. Perhaps it is not surprising that they are killed and wounded in a much larger number than more experienced fighters.

There is no clear motivational training in Kill House. But everything in the course, from the rigorous instructions in the class to demanding exams, which interns must pass when they go through a week, speaks to the bonus that knowledge and perfection brings.

One hard trainer, called a shark, is covered with tattoos and protects his face under the banks of a baseball cap. Exercises are waiting in their pilot shed for the chance to fly a three -inch drone through muddy obstacles. When their turn comes, it allows every person to give their goal to the training session – their levels differ significantly – they lie quietly when they try to achieve it.

Nobody has it on the day I am there, but Shark maintains their action. “Try it”, calls gently, pressing every man to his borders. But he never loses patience. “You need a little more exercises,” he says everything he says when one soldier breaks the drone and runs to recover it. “This is the respect they talk about,” Denys Rizhov explains to me. “When you prove yourself, the brigade is behind you.”

Rizhov knew a little about the drones when he enrolled in the Kill House-one of his part-time work was the soldiers for the UAV manufacturer. But now he has learned to fly. He speaks with a new object about technology and tactics, and found a new job with a more sophisticated manufacturer. Like most Ukrainians, he knows the costs of war too well – his father almost lost his leg in the trenches recently. But that doesn’t stop him. His new employer will cover the cost of the second week of the Drone School and is already thinking about the next step-when he jumps into a seven-day intensive brigade course.