In the middle of a battle there are basic things to be clear to don’t lose your life: “The first thing you ask yourself is where do I stand, how do I advance, how do I cover myself so they don’t hit me… you see yourself on the ground shooting and you must know where you want to go, where to go, how to go and when to go. And if you don’t have an answer to any of these questions, you have a problem…”, explains the Infantry captain Aurelio Navarro.
It is a procedure that superimposes order over confusion, method over panic. Between the bullets and the mortar shells, it’s better to know if you should get up and run to another position, or crawl slowly to the right, or crawl to the left after the last explosion. And this simple soldier’s handbook begins the training received by the troops sent by Ukraine to the Toledo Infantry Academy.
Of the 30,000 Ukrainians who will have been trained in October throughout the EU, more than 3,000 have already received training in Spain within the framework of EUMAM, the European Military Training Mission that started in November 2022 so that come before the machine guns Russian girls as least defenseless as possible. “In Ukraine they cannot distract commanders for training, because they are needed at the front. That is why we support them with the training here,” explains the lieutenant colonel Juan Carlos Cortes.
They both speak with the hustle and bustle, in the background, of the arrival of a new contingent on the hill above the Tagus that houses the academy, looking out its windows at the thousand-year-old city. In one of the sunny stone courtyards, Ukrainians line up collecting mats to start right away what Cortés calls “the miracle & rdquor ;.
And the miracle consists of stuffing in five weeks the “basic instruction of the combatant”, which the instructor captain shells vincent traver: “Deployment in the field, use of material, precision combat, masking, treatment of prisoners according to international agreements…”, in addition to “specific training” modules.
“I am a peaceful man & rdquor;
“Look, if I’m honest, I don’t want to be here, but it’s life: I have to come and train. I like pacifism, settling things peacefully, but you have to do what you have to do so that my people, children and grandchildren have a free territory,” says the captain sasha turning his camouflaged cap over in his hands. Before the war in Ukraine, this 36-year-old man with a shaved head and sad blue eyes was a kyiv pharmacist without any warmongering in the head.
It happens to him like captain serhii, his comrade-in-arms, 49 years old. Before he was donned in a camouflage suit with the Ukrainian golden trident on one shoulder, he led a placid life as a engineer in Odessa.
Their last names and their units are withheld for security. They have barely been in Spain for 24 hours, recently arrived with another 200 mobilized Ukrainians, when this newspaper approaches him.
His country’s deadly debacle hasn’t hit Serhii’s family yet, but the ukrainian drama he has been made of flesh and blood since he was assigned to instruct other soldiers, as he has been receiving news that this student, and that, and that other have died at the front or have been wounded. “And that is very sad & rdquor ;, he comments austerely.
Serhii brings a tale of patriotism from the Ukraine. He repeats the word to explain how it is possible that his little country stopped the coup of the second army of the world: “They come in their tanks, but they don’t bring the same motivation that we do: patriotism & rdquor ;. In Ukraine, she says, “people are tired, but they’re still looking forward to victory & rdquor ;.”
Of the 3,000 soldiers who have already been trained in Spain, 80% in Toledo, the robot portrait is that of a 30-year-old man, who had never taken up arms as a professional, in a country that, before Crimea was taken from it, had a testimonial army, with all its nuclear arsenal and a good part of its navy handed over to Russia and with barely 20,000 active soldiers.
Among so many mobilized people sent to learn at this point of Europe there are multitude of particular, intimate heroisms. One of the most impressive in the Toledo academy is that of a woman enlisted for the love of her mother. “I have a my son in a trench. What was I doing at home? & Rdquor ;, he explained to his instructors.
Sasha has his own theory about the war, which he summarizes in a few words, trying to make himself understood by Westerners: he, who was a pharmacist, who saw first mobilized in 2017 for the endless fighting in Donetsk, and that now he is wearing a uniform and boots again. Things in life, you know: “For me, war is a catharsisa rebirth of the person… You are forced to leave the previous thing, whatever weight you had… You are a person, the war arrives, and it turns you into another person”.
deadly mistakes
In Toledo there are 71 instructors, and on occasions they are also provided by the Marine Infantry in Cartagena or the Legion in Almería, the tankers in Madrid or the Infantry in Sant Climent Sescebes… according to the specific needs expressed by kyiv: artillery, combat in urban areas, military health…
Each contingent spends five weeks working from Monday to Sunday, ten hours a day otherwise there is also nocturnal instruction. “The golden rule is flexibility. We adapt to what Ukraine requests& rdquor;, says Cortés.
And that includes, depending on the course, nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, use of armored transports, driving a Leopard battle tank, or one of the most pressing needs today in the invaded country: demining, clearing one of the most booby-trapped territories in history.
“We return to the past: after all, soldiers on foot and avoiding mines… & rdquor;, says the lieutenant of Engineers Mar Garcia Navarro, a 26-year-old Valencian who walks in a pine forest teaching a dozen Ukrainians. This morning they have delimited a hillside with rectangles of white ropes, and they are in the heat of August going through metal detectors, puncturing the earth, cleaning the ground with brushes, learning to remove mines from the tamuja.
The lieutenant has gone from being a student at the Hoyo de Manzanares academy in Madrid to a teacher on this La Mancha hill. “Two hundred grams of penthrite is a lot of explosive, you know? & Rdquor ;, she recounts while she watches her people evolve, a squad that gets up at six in the morning every day to gamble when he returns to Ukraine. “They will put their bodies on top of the explosive… They cannot make mistakes, because in this job a mistake is the last one.”
Better put away
The Ukrainians hosted in Toledo “are taught a lot of training in combat shooting and precision shooting. They come out capable of picking up a weapon in a line of fire, reacting, responding…”, explains Traver. “AND their survival is greatly increased -Navarro, who has just returned from the NATO armored mission in Latvia, intervenes-. With the health knowledge they receive, they can stabilize a colleague who has received a bullet, make a tourniquet… That saves lives & rdquor ;.
Under the sun, the 200 rookies line up in another patio to go to the dining room. A percentage of these people curdled by adversity will lose their lives in combat. “They come framed, but not instructed. They have to come out well trained, because war is a lottery, and some are not going to return…”, reflects Cortés. That is why he underlines “the ratio & rdquor ;. In other words, a maximum of 16 students per instructor.
“That ensures teaching quality,” explains Sgt. Carlos Rivasa Cordovan who has dedicated 12 of his 35 years to the Army, and who is now “in the most beautiful mission I’ve ever had& rdquor ;.
Rivas says that the most useful thing it can teach is “that there is a hierarchy, and that you have to follow it in order. at first many they were running towards the enemy… There are no tricks here, only the confidence in the one next to you in the one above you& rdquor;.
In military parlance, riddled with acronyms, this tribe of guys running around is called TTCC. Everything you learn in the Toledo Training Command Center It subtracts ballots from them in the dark lottery that Russia forces its people to play.
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With so much work, from time to time “decompression” is convenient. This is what they call a free afternoon visiting the medieval streets and the cathedral of Toledo. In Cartagena, the Marines take them to bathe in the Mar Menor. “It’s exciting when you see them relax for a while,” says Cortés.
Appreciating them is inevitable, but it is not convenient because “it throws you a lot of uncertainty when you put a whatsapp and there is no answer & rdquor ;. Sergeant Rivas knows it well: “We are human, but it is better not to establish too many ties, because we know where they are going…& rdquor;