Soldiers rush through trenches amid hazy yellow smoke, machine guns ring out in the fields, invisible drones fly overhead, and voices shout “Watch out!” in Ukrainian.
The site could be 1,860 miles away in Ukraine's Donbass region, but instead some 2,000 Ukrainian conscripts and veterans were buried there, where French and German troops once beat each other during World War I. They are training on a mud flat in the Marne region of eastern France.
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The effort is part of a European Union-funded program that has already prepared 60,000 Ukrainians for the front lines since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
For this exercise, the French military attempted to recreate the conditions faced by Ukrainian forces at home, training with equipment provided by France.
On Thursday, a training exercise involving around 2,000 Ukrainian conscripts and veterans took place in a muddy field at the Champagne military camp in eastern France. (Reuters/John Irish)
This includes 128 armored vehicles for troop movement and reconnaissance, Caesar howitzers, anti-tank missile units, surface-to-air missiles, and battlefield radars.
The “Anne of Kiev” brigade, named after the princess who married King Henry I of France in nearby Reims Cathedral in 1051, has been training in France since September, and plans to prepare for the future before being sent to the front. I'm planning on heading to Poland in 10 days.
French officials say Ukraine will build a new highly trained combat-ready brigade amid uncertainty over future Western military aid, especially following the victory of Donald Trump, a vocal critic of Western military aid, in the U.S. presidential election. He also stated that he needed 15 troops.
“War for our survival”
Most of the Ukrainians being trained here had only enlisted a month before coming to France, and about 10% are military veterans. The average age is 38, but some are closer to 50.
People interviewed by Reuters expressed fear but determination to protect their country.
“Fear is part of war. For us, it is a war for survival and survival,” said Colonel Dmytro Rimshin, 38, a Ukrainian who heads Kiev's An Brigade.
“We will soon return to our homeland and our brigade will demonstrate its capabilities. I believe in our victory.”
Mihailo, 50, left his job at a chemical factory to join the army and was trained to lead an AMX light tank company.
Asked if he hoped the war would end by the end of the year, he smiled awkwardly and said, “I hope it ends before we have to go back.”
French officials said the current trainees, despite many being civilians, are learning quickly and show how the Ukrainian military can adapt despite shortages on the ground.
After nine weeks of training, Ukrainian troops are now able to repel attacks on their trenches and mount counterattacks, for example.
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French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecorne told reporters that France hopes to prepare more such troops in the coming months.
“There's a kind of human element to all of this,” he added. “Here we are interacting with people who in a few weeks' time will be on the front lines fighting, some of whom may lose their lives.”
