Editor’s Note: Since 2021, the authors have worked as a research team that has visited numerous locations across Europe, including Ukraine, to observe Ukrainian troops being trained. This article is based on a recent visit to Combined Arms Training Command in Poland, which falls under the authority of the European Union Military Assistance Mission Ukraine.
In a long war, attrition of highly trained personnel is to be expected. So as Ukraine’s defensive war grinds on through its third year, training Ukrainians is increasingly important simply to keep its fighting positions manned and its operational options maximized. As a 2024 RUSI report notes, “Ukrainians may have lost over 70% of their combat experienced personnel since 2022.” Though the new mobilization law has allowed Kyiv to conscript more soldiers to address the manpower shortage, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have struggled to provide sufficient high-quality training to the newly mobilized troops due to a lack of trainers and suitable facilities. According to Ukrainian commanders at the front, their infantry forces are “grappling with exhaustion and flagging morale, leading some to abandon their positions and allow Russia to capture more land.” Moreover, neither exhaustion or morale issues can be solved when, without sufficient training, “50 to 70 per cent of new infantry troops were killed or wounded within days of starting their first rotation.”
Reports from frontline Ukrainian commanders are in line with observations from British military trainers we interviewed in early 2023, who told us that among Ukrainian troops who graduated from their three-week basic training course, attrition rates were about 70 to 90 percent within two to four weeks of arriving at the front lines. Such heavy losses led the British military to increase the training program to five weeks, with an “emphasis on tactics that would help Ukrainians survive the first two weeks in the trenches, which is also the most critical learning period for becoming experienced.”
As training takes on a heightened level of importance for Ukraine’s ability to continue fighting in war, on par with other critical elements of international support like military equipment and economic assistance, many Western militaries are emphasizing programs of instruction. Based on our recent visits to training bases, we highlight how training of Ukrainian forces is adapting alongside the realities of this “cyberpunk war” and shifting tactical innovations by Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Filling a Crucial Gap through International Training
Ukraine’s international partners provide basic training for new recruits, as well as additional training to help experienced units fight together better as a cohesive whole. Despite popular perceptions that the United States provides the majority of the support to Ukraine, European partners are actually the primary providers of training. As of the end of summer 2024, the European Union (EU) has trained over sixty thousand Ukrainian troops, with thirteen thousand trained in Poland, and is working toward training another fifteen thousand by the end of the year. Known as the EU Military Assistance Mission (EUMAM) in support of Ukraine, there are twenty-four EU member states providing military personnel and programs of instruction to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Within that EUMAM framework, there are two training commands: Special Training Command (ST-C) in Strausberg, Germany, and an operational Combined Arms Training Command (CAT-C) in Zagan, Poland. Per our interviews with Western military personnel, only one of these commands is necessary, but having two provides advantages, such as enabling more flexibility for the training providers. Based on our fieldwork and visits to German and Polish training bases, each military provides a distinctive approach to Ukrainian training.
Outside of the EU framework, the UK leads a multinational training mission, known as Operation Interflex, which has trained over sixty thousand Ukrainians since 2014. The United States has trained almost twenty thousand Ukrainians, primarily through the Joint Multinational Training Group–Ukraine (JMTG-U)—run by assigned US National Guard units—and to a lesser extent, training provided by regionally aligned forces in Europe.
Collectively, since 2022, Ukraine’s international supporters have been responsible for training over 120,000 Ukrainians (more than one and a half times the size of the British Army) at eighty locations around the world. For context, the number of Ukrainians trained represents around 20 percent of the six hundred thousand soldiers Ukraine had fighting in the Ukrainian Ground Forces in 2023. It also represents, according to some estimates, over a year’s worth of replacements for Ukrainian military losses. Another coordination body for multilateral and bilateral training since November of 2022 is the US-led Security Assistance Group–Ukraine (SAG-U) in Wiesbaden, Germany. NATO leadership has committed to taking over SAG-U, and it is anticipated that by the end of 2024, NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) will be operationally capable with seven hundred personnel. While NATO has the doctrine and experience to provide overall coordination for international training efforts, it is not currently in that role; EUMAM, Interflex, and SAG-U (soon to be NSATU) are all technically on the same level and coordinate with each other as equals.
In addition to these training efforts for the conventional Ukrainian Army, there are varied approaches to training Ukrainian special operations forces (SOF). American SOF have reportedly trained thousands of Ukrainian SOF in various countries. Our interviews indicate that most SOF training is done bilaterally, by dozens of Western countries who are using their SOF to train Ukrainian SOF without direct coordination from NATO’s Allied Special Operations Forces Command or SAG-U.
Coordinating training under a multinational body like the European Union, however, does not guarantee that the training each nation provides will be the same. Our research team has observed the German approach to training Ukrainians, and after this recent trip, we identified comparative advantages in how the Polish train Ukrainian troops. In addition, underneath each training command, individual countries provide trainer contributions, which may operate according to their own national requirements. For instance, numerous Ukrainians have commented to us that Finnish trainers are the best at teaching them how to use AK-47s for infantry tactics. Contrarily, even though we visited the CAT-C on an official visit, French trainers did not allow us to observe a portion of the training, nor did they allow us to talk to Ukrainian trainees. Belgian trainers, on the other hand, were under no such restrictions when we visited. Overall, we view the differences in national approaches across the EUMAM mission as a strength that allows for innovation to find what works best for Ukrainian trainees. The Polish CAT-C and their troops are particularly flexible.
The Polish Way: Listening and Staying Connected
The Polish approach to training visiting Ukrainian forces starts the first day as they do what they call “research” on each individual Ukrainian soldier that has battlefield experience, which they immediately use to improve their training and program of instruction. During this initial screening process, Polish training officers identify those with combat experience, interview them about what tactics are (or are not) working, and use that information to immediately update and refine the program of instruction. Our interviews indicate that this initial “research” is a critical step as EUMAM leadership struggles to get advance knowledge about visiting units and does not get feedback or debriefs about how Ukrainian troops trained at the CAT-C perform on the front lines, except through informal contacts that trainers maintain with graduated trainees on the front.
The Polish CAT-C headquarters recognizes that training must meet the realities of the war Ukraine is currently fighting—a kind of war that the Polish military has not experienced. A senior Polish officer at the CAT-C headquarters described to us the challenges of training Ukrainians. “Without air dominance, the Ukrainians have to fight like it’s World War One,” he said, adding that training must be focused on the “must haves” for training requirements rather than the “nice to haves.” Senior officers told us that it can be difficult to balance the NATO standards on which programs of instruction are based with the realities of how Ukrainians are fighting. Regardless, the Polish military prides itself on being able to create and host any training program requested by the Ukrainians within two weeks.
The flexibility of the Polish approach was apparent when we observed the training provided at the CAT-C for brigade headquarters. In a war that is continuously causing losses in experienced personnel, the development of leaders at the company, battalion, and brigade levels is critical for Ukraine’s military to fight at its best—and brigade headquarters must learn how to fight together. We observed headquarters training at one of the Polish sites. Officers from different sections of the brigade, like intelligence, drones, and operations, sat in front of screens displaying drone feeds and used Kropyva software to indicate and control friendly forces and identify enemy positions. Brigade staff were trained using realistic scenarios from actual Ukrainian brigades. The headquarters training we observed, unlike other portions of the training, was run by two highly experienced Ukrainian trainers. These two officers were instructing the unit on a modified version of the military decision-making process, one of the five such Ukrainian variants on the NATO-standard process that they teach. Interestingly, they noted that what made their version of the military decision-making process the most unique was that their “concept of operations” step is different from the NATO standard. Mission command was not taught, since the brigade staff would not be using it in combat, especially with inexperienced troops. As a Ukrainian officer told us, “We can’t train for something we don’t use in the war.”
The Polish CAT-C has also worked hard to incorporate Ukrainian requests for realistic training. Among the realistic features of training were efforts to make trainees more psychologically resilient and prepared for combat, like the incorporation of blood and animal parts into the training for medics. One Ukrainian request was particularly widespread: “The Ukrainians keep asking us to integrate drones into their training,” said one Polish military officer, a demand also described to us by numerous other Polish military advisors at training sites across western Poland. At the CAT-C, reconnaissance drones and bomber drones with fake grenades have been incorporated into the training. In other cases, where Polish instructors face training range constraints with drone use due to outdated regulations or EU airspace rules, they attach a cord to the drone making it tethered, and thus legal to operate in most cases.
Opportunities to Improve Impact
Despite the high quality of the EUMAM training offered in Poland, its impact is reduced by ongoing force quality issues, manpower shortages, and operational pressure the Ukrainian Army faces. Despite initial attempts, EUMAM objectives pivoted away from producing trainers for Ukraine because the trainers were being sent to the front (although one bright spot is that the CAT-C is providing medic and engineer instructor training). One Polish colonel told us that “the train-the-trainers approach for the Ukrainians doesn’t work,” adding that the “Ukrainians are facing the realities of a war, not an ideal war where they can do good personnel management.” This matches similar observations at EUMAM training in Germany, where German instructors thought they were facilitating train-the-trainer approaches to the Ukrainians, but the Ukrainians were just filling training slots for the sake of filling them.
Another issue in personnel management is that the battalions trained at the CAT-C are sometimes split up into companies and sent off to fill gaps in the front. While understandable given the critical situation at some areas in the front, splitting up battalions limits the impact of the collective training they receive, which is intended to teach a unit how to operate as a more cohesive—and therefore more effective—whole.
Moreover, leaders at the CAT-C noted that Ukraine is not always sending the right soldiers—with the right experience—to the correct training program. This mirrors what we observed at other training sites, where Western military advisors complained about the variance in quality and experience of Ukrainian soldiers sent to some of their more advanced training programs. This leads to degraded training as instructors had to focus on rudimentary tactics and basic soldiering. And per dozens of our interviews with Ukrainian troops in such training, it also leads to equally annoyed combat veterans enrolled in these programs who are not receiving the advanced level of military training they were anticipating.
Another missed opportunity is strategic impact assessment. Given the complexity of the technological innovation cycle at the battlefront and the rapid change in the organization of Ukraine’s armed forces as they learn how to fight better under pressure, it is difficult to determine how foreign military training factors into that equation. Nevertheless, it is important to try to identify what works and what does not work. This is important not only to optimize the training outcomes for Ukrainians, but also to ensure lessons that flow in the other direction are systematically captured. In many cases, for example, we have increasingly identified a phenomenon of reverse security force assistance, where NATO advisors are meant to make the Ukrainians more militarily effective, but through the process of training Ukrainians, the advisors learn more about modern warfighting, thereby making their own military more effective. For instance, we learned that French advisors are using their experience from training Ukrainian infantry to create new French doctrine for their infantry-drone tactics, techniques, and procedures. Moreover, a Polish general stated, “We draw extensively from what is happening across our eastern border. We use the experiences of the Ukrainian forces, implement new solutions, modify training programs.” Hence, NATO establishing a new Joint Analysis Training and Education Centre in Poland “will focus on developing the Ukrainian armed forces’ ability to defend, deter, and operate seamlessly with NATO forces. It will also analyse lessons learned from the ongoing war in Ukraine to inform NATO’s future strategies.” Helping NATO forces learn lessons of their own will be crucial as they prepare for (possible) conflicts that may include elements of the Ukrainian character of warfare.
Ongoing training missions help Ukraine resist Russian aggression, but even collectively they are a drop in the bucket compared to what Ukraine needs. At the current rate, the only way to improve the training model is to send advisors to Ukraine, a proposition that EUMAM is currently considering. It would build on the successes EUMAM has already achieved, as well as signal a European commitment and greater efforts at strategic autonomy to defend Europe (of which Ukraine is a part) from Russian imperial ambitions. Of course, the decision to send advisors to Ukraine is complicated, and must be weighed against political factors that we do not have the space to discuss in this piece. We have made the argument for sending EU advisors and US advisors to Ukraine elsewhere.
What is clear from our analysis is that the EUMAM training effort, while excellent, is hamstrung by simple economies of scale and the rules that most NATO militaries abide by at their training sites. The amount EUMAM can train directly under the current model is limited by Ukraine’s ability to move experienced soldiers out of country and by the number of EU military instructors and space available at training centers. Switching from a direct training model out of country to a train-the-trainer model in Ukraine, coupled with pledges from Ukraine to develop training centers and not send trainers off to combat without competent replacements, would create a sustainable, indigenous training capability for Ukraine.
Placing EUMAM instructors in Ukraine would also further align the training to the realities of this war. Even the most flexible training program—like the one described in this article—is limited in how much it can adapt while located far from the front lines without opportunities for regular feedback from former students. For instance, Ukrainians want to use drones with live grenades during training scenarios, alongside other training activities (e.g., driving tanks over a soldier in a trench, being shot at with live rounds, etc.) that foster “mental resilience and psychological hardening,” but no Western training facility will permit these activities out of concern for risk and safety. Even Ukrainian training centers suffer from failure to adapt to current combat conditions. Placing EU instructors in Ukraine could close this gap and help standardize Ukrainian military training across the board. With the EU likely to extend its EUMAM training mandate on November 15, 2024 for an additional two years, sending EU military advisors into Ukraine would help facilitate “realism of training” by reducing “the gap between the training conditions and the reality of the battlefield.”
The Ukrainian armed forces need more high-quality forces. The West cannot help Kyiv mobilize the one hundred thousand troops it needs, at a minimum, to replace its losses. But the raw availability of manpower is not as serious an issue as it was earlier; despite initial gloomy reports that mobilization was failing, over thirty thousand new soldiers a month were drafted this summer. The bigger issue is preparing these new recruits for the highly lethal and transparent battlefield, where massed forces and armor become easy targets to quickly identify and target with drones and artillery. Washington and Brussels can muster the willpower, doctrine, training modules, troops, and equipment needed to make sure that Ukrainian solders are qualitatively better than their more numerous Russian counterparts. And the Polish advisors are showcasing how to do so, not only preparing Ukrainians for the realities of their war but also using that experience to rapidly modernize their own fighting forces and tactics.
Dr. Alexandra Chinchilla (@AlexCecylia) is an assistant professor of international affairs at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service. She is a 2024 nonresident fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative, a joint production of Princeton’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and the Modern War Institute at West Point. Her research is primarily focused on security cooperation. Her book project, Advising War: Great Power Influence Through Boots on the Ground, examines the context of military advisors sent to partners actively fighting a war and contends that advisors help states pursue often ambitious political goals of influence and control when engaging with a local military.
Lieutenant Colonel Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek, PhD, (@JaharaMatisek) is a military professor in the national security affairs department at the United States Naval War College, research fellow with the European Resilience Initiative Center, and United States Department of Defense Minerva co–principal investigator for improving United States security assistance. He has published over one hundred articles and essays in peer-reviewed journals and policy-relevant outlets on strategy, warfare, and security assistance. He is a command pilot that was previously an associate professor in the Military and Strategic Studies Department at the United States Air Force Academy.
Dr. William Reno is a professor and chair of the Political Science Department at Northwestern University. He has conducted fieldwork and interviews in conflict zones across Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for over thirty years, having authored three books: Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone, Warlord Politics and African States, and Warfare in Independent Africa. He has published over two hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals and policy-relevant periodicals, and edited volumes on civil wars, rebels, and military assistance. He is the principal investigator for the US Department of Defense Minerva-funded program studying how the United States can improve foreign military training.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, Department of the Air Force, or Department of Defense. This article was supported by Levy Chair and Ruger Chair funds at the US Naval War College and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA9550-20-1-0277.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. George Davis, US Army