"There were perhaps 100 of us, and our clear role was to teach infantry tactics, such as leap and bound alternating movements, sectors of fire, and calling for artillery fire. This was NATO doctrine. Because 20 years ago, the Ukrainians were indoctrinated by Soviet tactics that just throw people at their enemy like human meat waves. The roles are somewhat reversed now. Now the West is trying to learn how Ukrainians are fighting, and how they've turned what little they had into formidable weapons."
"We knew that Ukraine's military budget was, let's just say, underfunded. Everything they had was Soviet-era equipment comparable to the stuff that the US had decommissioned 20 years earlier. We asked ourselves what we were doing sitting in their old Russian-made helicopters. Helicopters commonly leak hydraulic fluid. However, when we boarded the helicopters in Ukraine, there were puddles of fluid in the cracks on the floor of the aircraft. Definitely, nobody smoked near those things."
A US Marine corporal trained Ukrainian infantry in Odesa in 2005, teaching NATO infantry tactics like leap-and-bound movements, sectors of fire, and calling for artillery. Ukrainian forces relied on underfunded, Soviet-era equipment that the US had decommissioned decades earlier. Limited budgets and aging systems forced Ukrainian soldiers to develop strong repair, maintenance, and improvisation skills to keep equipment operational. That mindset of ingenuity and adaptation has enabled Ukrainians to convert scarce resources into effective weapons. Western forces are observing and learning from Ukrainian approaches to fighting and sustaining equipment under austere conditions.
Read at Business Insider
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