Ukraine Trains 40.000 Invader Brigade Troops to Counterattack

JAKARTA - More than a year after the Russian invasion, Aleks, a translator with no prior military experience, walks through the forest with his rifle raised, training to ambush enemy troops in one of Ukraine's newest military units.

Border of Steel is one of eight new raiding brigades numbering 40,000 troops, and will be used by Ukraine in counteroffensives against Russian invaders in the coming weeks or months.

"I want the war to end as soon as possible and I hope the strike brigade will make it happen sooner," Aleks told Reuters at a training facility at a secret location in Ukraine, as reported on March 6.

The units have benefited from an aggressive recruitment campaign on social media and billboards, with the aim of attracting highly motivated volunteers.

This effort comes as Kyiv faces increasing challenges in recruiting new troops.

His troops have faced months of Russian attacks on towns like Bakhmut in the east, where thousands of soldiers have died. Kyiv does not disclose its military losses.

The new brigade, designed by the Interior Ministry, will fight alongside regular army units supported by new battle tanks from the West and thousands of new troops trained by allied forces outside Ukraine.

The brigades have interesting names: Hurricane, Spartan, Chervona Kalyna, Frontier, Rage, Azov and Kara Dag, a mountain in Crimea.

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said he believed Ukraine still had considerable mobilization potential and that its recruits would consist of women, people with no military experience, as well as former officers and soldiers.

A lot can happen in a counterattack for Kyiv.

A reckless and bloody attempt to reclaim territory from Russian troops could dampen optimism among key Western backers and prompt them to push Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow.

Ukraine pushed back Russian troops from Kyiv last year, before liberating some territory in the northeast and the Kherson region in the south. However, Russian troops still occupied the strategic eastern, southern and Crimean peninsulas.

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine wants every inch of its land back from Moscow, which unilaterally declares five Ukrainian territories part of Russia even though it does not control all of them.

"For them, the goal is to liberate Ukraine," Klymenko said of the soldiers he recruited in an interview in Kyiv.

"We are writing the great history of our country for the next few decades," he continued.

Previously, Ukraine launched a recruitment campaign for an assault brigade in early February.

Klymenko said it could take up to four months to train civilians with no experience, but former police or army officers could be trained within two months.

At an undisclosed location on March 24, Frontier Steel Brigade fighters conducted target shooting drills, practiced flying drones, and trained how to evacuate and rescue injured soldiers.

A shooting instructor, who goes by the nickname Hassid, said the new soldiers absorbed the training quickly and were highly motivated.

Border of Steel is commanded by Valeriy Padytel, who leads a force of Ukrainian border guards in the defense of now-occupied Mariupol, where he was captured after holding out on a large steel factory. He was freed in a prisoner exchange last September.

He gave no hint of when or where Ukraine might launch a retaliatory strike.

"We will continue to train, will train all the time while the brigade is being formed and while we wait for the war order," he said.

Rather than the army, the brigade is overseen by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as are other units including the Azov Regiment, which gained worldwide fame for successfully defending against invading troops at the Azovstal steelworks in besieged Mariupol last year.

Klymenko said 2.5 percent of the brigade was made up of female fighters: "Our women are quite patriotic, strong, and they hate the enemy as much as men, they want to serve."